Automatic Noodle

by

Digital audio read by Em Grosland; unabridged; 4 h 13 m

English language

Published Aug. 5, 2025 by Macmillan Audio.

(5 reviews)

A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz.

You don’t have to eat food to know the way to a city’s heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food—the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around—for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war.

But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to call on their customers, their community, and each other—and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn’t built for them.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com

2 editions

reviewed Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Abrupt ending; left a LOT unexplained

It's extremely short and definitely in the "cozy" category. I liked the idea of the world they're living in, but honestly, the ending was so abrupt that I'm not sure it was worth the read or not. Grab it from the library if you can, maybe?

reviewed Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Comfy liberation

It’s about robots in San Francisco our newly liberated after a war that decide together to open bang bang noodle shop. They all have competing hopes and dreams and worries together they are able to find a way. It’s low stakes, comfy sci-fi with a heart.

reviewed Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

A Warm Bowl of Noodles for the Heart

"Automatic Noodle" by Annalee Newitz (@annaleen@wandering.shop) is a cozy, sci-fi novella with a lot of heart. Set in a war-ravaged San Francisco after Californian independence, the book follows a group of robots trying to start a restaurant serving hand-pulled biang biang noodles. In this world, robots with Human Equivalent intelligence have been granted Civil Rights by California. But their existence is limited - they can earn money but cannot have a bank account, vote, or reproduce. Through the experiences of these non-human characters, we see explorations about identity, community, and belonging in a world that resists recognizing the person-hood of those characters. The strength of the book is in its gentle world-building. Newitz does not hit you over the head with too much exposition (one of the big sins of a lot of speculative fiction). The author always keeps the focus on the interior lives of the robots …

reviewed Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Lovely

I'm not normally much of a cozy fiction reader, but this was lovely: smart, funny, and pointed in highly relevant ways. The story is a simple, warm hug in so many ways, but there's a lot going on underneath to inform the world that Newitz builds; a very dark, involved tale sits just out of frame. Beautifully done as always.

Subjects

  • robots