Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Mid-April Review roundup

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

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It’s time for another mega-post reviewing a bunch of books that have nothing in common with each other! Lousie Erdrich’s The Mighty Red was so achingly beautiful that when I finished it, I got genuinely worried that I would never find a book this good again. Set in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, it follows two farming families during the 2008 financial crisis. There’s a local tragedy, a love triangle, and a scandalous crime, but the centerpiece of the book is Erdrich’s prose. She […]

Please Search Hand-Pulled Noodles Near Me

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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After the ghost kitchen they worked at is shut down, a group of robots decide to start up their own restaurant serving hand-pulled noodles, but anti-robot prejudice threatens their success. Immediately after reading this book, I looked up the nearest place I could get my hands on hand-pulled noodles, so in that regard this has been an absolute success. I have never had them before but I am somehow craving them anyway. I picked up this book because it’s been so highly recommended on Cannonball […]

Three sci-fi books making me think about robots and AI

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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The end of January to the very beginning of March has had the good fortune to have three excellent books looking at robots, AI, sentience, autonomy, finding meaning, and limitations on the flawed way humanity has programmed robots/AI.  While setting up this post, I just realized all the author’s first name start with A.  Huh, kind of interesting. First up was a novella by Annalee Newitz, Automatic Noodle.  This is the most fun and lighthearted of the bunch.  It is the year 2064, a few years […]

Robot Rizz

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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When reading this book you will need to make sure you have immediate access to some incredibly delicious noodles because you will be awakening a vicious craving. A small group of robots unexpectedly reboot themselves in an abandoned ghost kitchen in post-war San Francisco. They were unexpectedly shut down before being left behind but due to an unexpected weather emergency they’re back online. After dealing with the immediate crisis the four bots- Staybehind, Sweetie, Cayenne, and Hands- are at a loss for what their next […]

The Rise of Sanctuary Noodles

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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There are many reasons that Annalee Newitz’ Automatic Noodle felt like it was written for me specifically. It has cooking, which is one of my great loves and is a way I show love and feel worth when I am anxious. It has characters trying to live and be in control of their lives in a country with laws that don’t grant them full autonomy. Every one of these characters, whether we get their backstory or not, is a weirdo with enormous trauma just doing […]

A hopeful future with robots and food

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

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If you need a story of chosen family and hope and good food, Automatic Noodle absolutely fits the bill. This is a delightful novella of a near-future where California has split from the United States after war, and part of California progressiveness was to give civil rights to human equivalent embodied intelligence (HEEI) robots. But those rights are limited – they’re not able to use a bank, own property, and there’s lots of prejudice against robots (very allegorical to American attitudes towards immigrants and marginalized […]



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