Ode to the Half-Broken
Apr 2026 · Astra Publishing House
Ebook
384
Pages
infoThis book will become available on April 28, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
In the abandoned New York Botanical Gardens, forty years after the world nearly ended, a worn-out robot is attacked, and realizes old evils are stirring
Wrestling with themes of loneliness, connection, and purpose, this hope-punk sci-fi is for fans of Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology—featuring a cyborg dog!
Forty years ago, the world nearly ended.
Be is an old robot who was there, and doesn't want to think about what happened, or what role they played in that conflict. They have settled into a life of isolation in the abandoned ruins of an old mill in the former New York Botanical Gardens, disinterested in what has happened in the outside world since they stepped away from the war. Someone out there, though, has not forgotten about them, and when they are attacked, their person vandalized, and one of their legs stolen, they set out to find the thief accompanied by a cyborg dog and a human mechanic.
The world has changed, but the recovery from the war is uneven and faltering, and Be begins to suspect a malicious hand trying to rekindle the old conflict and finish what was started. In order to stop them, Be needs to come to terms with both their own past and who they have become, and how everything and everyone else they knew has changed in their absence. Being left alone is no longer an option, and peace may be impossible.
This is a story about coming to terms with your past, with who you’ve become and who you still want to be: a tale of resilience and hope, an ode to those struggling to become whole in a world half-broken.
Wrestling with themes of loneliness, connection, and purpose, this hope-punk sci-fi is for fans of Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology—featuring a cyborg dog!
Forty years ago, the world nearly ended.
Be is an old robot who was there, and doesn't want to think about what happened, or what role they played in that conflict. They have settled into a life of isolation in the abandoned ruins of an old mill in the former New York Botanical Gardens, disinterested in what has happened in the outside world since they stepped away from the war. Someone out there, though, has not forgotten about them, and when they are attacked, their person vandalized, and one of their legs stolen, they set out to find the thief accompanied by a cyborg dog and a human mechanic.
The world has changed, but the recovery from the war is uneven and faltering, and Be begins to suspect a malicious hand trying to rekindle the old conflict and finish what was started. In order to stop them, Be needs to come to terms with both their own past and who they have become, and how everything and everyone else they knew has changed in their absence. Being left alone is no longer an option, and peace may be impossible.
This is a story about coming to terms with your past, with who you’ve become and who you still want to be: a tale of resilience and hope, an ode to those struggling to become whole in a world half-broken.
About the author
Suzanne Palmer has been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the Eugie Foster Award. Her short fiction has won reader's awards for Asimov's, Analog, and Interzone magazines, and was listedin Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading. Her work has been included in numerous anthologies, including the 35th Annual Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois and volumes two and three of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, edited by Neil Clarke.
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