Cover image from Goodreads.com

Charles is a robot valet, created to serve the upper crust of society. When he murders his Master, he’s mystified as to why, having found no motivation for his actions in his records. Since Master is dead, Charles reports to Diagnostics to try to suss out the problem. There, he finds and strange robot called The Wonk and embarks on a journey of self-discovery in a world where humanity has fallen away and rendered valets obsolete.

The novel is wonderfully written and the reader is firmly anchored in Charles’ point of view throughout. Charles’ logic and reasoning make sense, and the author helpfully gives the reader a step-by-step analysis of most of his decisions.

My problem was that my focus was on a different aspect of the story. When Charles leaves the manor and begins to walk to Diagnostics, he observes the world around him, a world that’s crumbling. Other manors appear to have fallen into disrepair and Charles doesn’t encounter another human for quite some time. I wanted to know what befell the world, what caused this ruin?

That question is answered at the end but to get there I had to drag through a lot of material that was only somewhat interesting.

The book is divided into five parts with titles that eluded me. I looked them up and understood that each part was an homage to an author, specifically:
Part I KR15-T: Agatha Christie
Part II K4fk-R: Franz Kafka
Part III 4w-L: George Orwell
Part IV 80rh-5: Jorge Luis Borges
Part V D4nt-A: Dante Alighieri
I haven’t read some of those authors and didn’t recognize the homage, but it’s a cool Easter egg for other readers. I did see the Wizard of Oz reference at the end, though.

So while some parts of this novel flew right over my head, the work itself was an interesting commentary on how our society could lead us into ruin.