163 pages, Hardcover
Published August, 2025 by Tordotcom
My first experience with this author was at a book signing event. Sure, I knew the name; they were appearing with SB Divya at Mysterious Galaxy to promote the Terraformers. I kept thinking about my father, a lifelong political scientist who had lots of city planner students when Newitz was talking about that book. I say this as a compliment, but that novel was a great piece of political scientist fiction. That novel ended up working for me on every single level. Super amazing Science Fiction, so I went into Automatic Noodle cold, knowing nothing except what I could glean from the cover art. Robots and noodles were involved.
At 160 pages, this will be marketed as a novella, but in the old days, this would be a novel, and since I am mostly a classic and New Wave reader, I am going to go ahead and consider this a novel. So far, one of the best novels I have read this year. I suppose if you trust me, go in cold and read this. I don’t think you can spoil this one, but I liked discovering the story as I went.
I also want to talk about it. It is also being marketed as cozy, I think, because it is a generally positive story about bots and AI opening a ghost kitchen. As I was wondering if the novel has haters. The reality is that authors and creators of art have taken a pretty hardline stance against AI slop, and we just saw the Shy Girl thing happen, where an entire book and author were canceled for using AI.
So here is a novel where you find yourself rooting for a bot who opens a noodle restaurant in post-independence California. In this novel, Newitz seems to be playing with the concept that these bots have become their own lifeforms. Their struggles become very real, and I found myself naturally rooting for them. Authors don’t want AI coming for their jobs, but I am sure chefs don’t either.
I also found it strange that a book marketed as “cozy” has such a bleak (albeit realistic) speculative future. A war between America and California with Robotic battles and missiles launched at the Bay Area…
“Downtown had the appearance of a burned forest with a new undergrowth, full of precarious potential.
The old City Hall with its fake classical Dome was rubble, and Cruz covered its remains into sidewalks and bridges long ago. Now, the city government worked out of Klamath tower, whose refurbished light screens gleamed with images of the California flag, featuring a stoned-looking brown they're alternating with San Francisco's rainbow skull and bones.
Millions fled the Bay Area after missiles hit Mountain View and Cupertino in 57, but millions stayed too.”
The future of Automatic Noodle was very well envisioned, and worked for me, but it is not exactly cozy. The relationship between Californians, both bots and humans, and America is a subtle but interesting part of the novel. I have spent enough time in the Bay Area to picture the geography involved. The idea of living in California and thinking of America as some place else I suppose, was cozy for me.
“Thanks. I really don’t want to get sent back to America. Fuck that place. It’s a hellhole run by garbage cans.”
There are several main characters, although most of the action is seen through a robot who was a veteran of the war named Staybehind. The point of view is interesting in this novella, as much of it is by text message threads between bots. We know that 50 years after the Colossus project predicted it , computers and Bots are talking without us. I suppose it is a cozy notion that they are not plotting the end of the world but planning to open a noodle restaurant.
Again, this presents to me the ultimate question: as writers are rightly sensitive about folks using AI to “write” novels, are readers going to be cool with robots “taking” our cooking jobs? I really wasn’t asking those questions while I got wrapped up and invested in the story of their operation.
“Fritz co. was constantly creating new storefronts on GrandoSando, activating a new one every time we got terrible reviews. Why do you think we had to make Mexican, Chinese, Indian, and colonial American food all at the same time? Because all the ingredients were shit. To keep the illusion going, we became new restaurants every few weeks.”
The speculative nature of restaurants culture was as thought out as the city planning in the Terraformers, but not that different, as AN was using those political science muscles. The world-building just never failed.
“Word of the upstart restaurant spread across the Bay, too. Grizzled mixed-race zoomers rode e-bikes across the Nu Bay Bridge from Berkeley and posted videos of themselves trying to slurp an entire noodle in one go. Even a few willowy white ladies from the gated towns of Marin drifted through to declare their satisfaction with the veganism of it all.”
This is a strength of Automatic Noodle, but there are other strengths. The characters who are not human become relatable, and it is a bit sneaky. IT is easy not to start picturing Stay behind as a Bay Area bike messenger instead of a robot veteran of the war.
“Sweetie folded her arms. What the hell? You changed our business name? That would get us flagged by a fraud algorithm. What if the city figures out we're running this place? Bots aren't allowed to own property, I'm pretty sure we aren't allowed to own a business either.
We don't own a business - like I said, legally we're a proxy for Fritz Co.”
The novel has many deeper and richer themes. I love how fully realized the non-human characters are throughout the narrative. Staybehind has a past in war, and the character has trauma that might be more in the mind of the reader than the character, but that itself is a neat author trick.
I loved Automatic Noodle, even if the idea of bots running a restaurant makes me as ethically uneasy as writers who cheat using LLM. This novel does what the best SF does: ask questions, put forward ideas and force us to confront the direction of the future. Big fan of Automatic Noodle.
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