A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Becky Chambers

Jul 2021 · Monk & Robot Book 1 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Em Grosland

About this audiobook

"Narrator Emmett Grosland conjures the essence of a troubled soul in search of peace in this gentle audio."—AudioFile Magazine

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series gives us hope for the future.

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

A Macmillan Audio production from Tordotcom

Ratings and reviews

TLDR: The story and narration were delightful but I think we were ripped off. The story was really nice but it is more like the first 2 chapters of a book than a whole book. And while the story was quite nice and the narration was brilliantly executed the production value was super low. It sounds like instead of re-recording a pert where a mistake was made they just used a computer synthesized voice... as if we couldn't tell the difference between our very good narrator and a 🤖🔉. TLDR: The story and narration were delightful but I think we were ripped off.

this book has so much to unpack it's uplifting, provokes great philosophical quandaries and is just over all heart warming. I can not wait to read the next book in the series.

As always, Chambers is incredible. Weird to listen to while mowing the lawn, though.

About the author

Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others.

Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.