The Cybernetic Tea Shop

by Meredith Katz

Genres: Romance, Science Fiction
Pages: 112
Rating:

Synopsis:

A F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance. A story about artificial intelligence and real kindness, about love, and the feeling of watching steam rising softly from a teacup on a bright and quiet morning.

Clara Gutierrez is an AI repair technician and a wanderer. Her childhood with her migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering for too long, so she moves from place to place across retro-futuristic America.

Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master’s dream for the shop while slowly breaking down.

They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on…

Meredith Katz’s The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a novella focusing on two characters: a technician called Clara, who likes to wander from city to city, letting her job take her wherever she feels an urge to go, and a robot called Sal, who has been running a teashop for almost 300 years, since long after her original owner (and partner) died.

The solution is obvious in the setup: Sal is slowly beginning to fall apart, and Clara’s got the knowhow to fix her. But that isn’t all there is to it, as they also form a personal bond, and become partners. There’s a bittersweetness to it since we know Sal will long outlast Clara, but the way it works out is very sweet: Sal is ready to begin taking new risks and doing new things, and Clara has someone who will go with her.

Also, a particular highlight is Clara’s pet/robot, Joanie: she isn’t quite sentient but still packs plenty of personality…

I really liked it, and though there are some shadows over the story (such as persecution of Sal for being a robot), it’s overall really gentle and warm.

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