Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz - Dec 21, 2025
Details
Dec 21, 2025 - Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz
Topics: Science Fiction, Dystopian, LGBTQ, Cozy, Robots
General overview of a meeting
Our meetings start with an icebreaker question and a chance for each person to introduce themselves. We then move to rating the book with a thumbs up/down/sideways. We spend most of the meeting discussing the book, including strong opinions, questioning why the author made the choices they did, personal reactions to the story and characters, and wondering how it could have been improved. We end each meeting by giving everyone the opportunity to propose a book for the next meeting, and voting on the choices.
You don't need to finish reading the whole book to come to the meeting! However, if you haven't finished the book, please be OK with hearing spoilers.
To find us, look for the group with the book of the month displayed on the table.
Dues Announcement
Starting in January 2026, we will start collecting dues at each meeting to cover costs such as Meetup/Bookclubs.com fees and paying for special meeting locations. Donations can be made with cash (preferred) or through a Ko-Fi link. Suggested donation is $2 per person per meeting but never required. We happily accept more $ in dues in order to cover costs for those who cannot contribute. Our goal is to keep the club accessible to all.
Description of the Book
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.
While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone―or something―is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?
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