End of Series - Tildes Book Club discussion - July 2026 - A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
This is the seventh Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-seventh overall. We are discussing a Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers.
ANNOUNCEMENT - My schedule has changed and I have joined an in person book group. I will no longer be coordinating these discussions for the foreseeable future. I want to thank everyone who has participated and contributed and read along while lurking. It has been a pleasure.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.
Thank you so much for your time and dedication to these discussions! If no one else has the energy, I can try to at least finish us out with the last two books on our schedule for August and September.
Adding another thanks to the pile, @boxer_dogs_dance. Even though I've missed the past several due to IRL stuff getting in the way, I've loved participating in this book club and you've done a fantastic job of coordinating it.
I know a little bit about running an event on Tildes, so I know how much time and prep work it takes that people don't see. So, genuinely, thank you for everything you put into this group. I've read some really memorable books that I wouldn't have read otherwise, and I've loved getting to hear other people's thoughts on them (including yours!) as well.
EDIT: Just saw you put a spot for this further down the topic. Whoops!
You are very welcome!
If you'd rather, I can take a swing at hosting the last couple of discussions; you do a lot on the site already, and worst case scenario you can take over for the last one. I'd just need someone to tell me what the last two books are, as a quick search hasn't turned them up.
Here’s the remaining schedule. Thanks for doing this, ICN!
Thank you!
Would be happy pass it to you, I know the next one is Light From Uncommon Stars but I'll check for the last one in a bit!
Last week in September - Dr. No by Ian Fleming
Here's the last one!
Thank you!
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I didn't like the first 1/3 of the story too much. I was interested in seeing a thorough description of how this new society lives, and while you do get a brief look into it the point is more to highlight Dex being dissatisfied in order to incite the journey away from civilization. By the time they were prepared to leave, I felt like I had more questions that answers about how life works there. In that sense it was effective, because I ended up sharing Dex's dissatisfaction, and I ended up enjoying the story more once it moved away from the cities and Mosscap was introduced, so the weak opening helped me empathize with the main character a bit.
I was originally thinking a Tea Monk was going to be something like a confessional priest or therapist of sorts, and Dex's conversations with other people would give insights into the day to day life and the problems that people face in this world, and what their approach to dealing with those conflicts are. The first failed tea service was an attempt at that. Then after the time skip once Dex is considered "good" at the job, it feels more like the role is a glorified barista, with maybe a splash of mixologist. Its kind of like how you get into a career because from the outside you are only thinking of the general topic, but once you are actually doing it you understand how much of the job is just the boring minutiae.
I don't like the religion that Dex is a part of. I don't have a specific explanation of whats wrong, but it feels very made up and surface level.
The addition of Mosscap is when the more "monk" aspects of a Tea Monk start to come into play. I found it kind of crazy how the whole thing with the robots is just not that big a deal to people anymore. Like, if humanity one day randomly created souls in thousands of artificial beings, you'd think that would be a huge part of their religion, right? We are, today, having cultural conversations about the possibility that AI could be conscious, and what that means about the nature of consciousness and therefore our own existence. But here its just like "Yeah all the robots somehow achieved sapience and we don't really understand what thats about, but its not a big deal because they all left so who cares." It clearly IS a big deal on some level because their society abandoned automation as a result of this, but the fact that Dex only vaguely remembers all this was very surprising to me. The main big impact on their culture seems to be a kid of internalized shame that Dex has about letting a robot help out with things.
Some of this must just be out of necessity, the author needs to include Mosscap as a free willed sentient agent but also cant really make any hard scientific explanations for how consciousness was achieved since nobody really knows how that would work. The idea of the robots as an independent species is interesting, because they seem in some ways to be static creatures. Despite apparently being disconnected from humanity for so long that Mosscap has never met one before, it still talks with humanlike language, humanlike polite cheerfulness, a humanlike delight for novelty. They havent adapted their speech or thoughts in new ways, they kind of seem to act the way you would assume a human who was given immortality might act. It makes me personally wonder if the supposed consciousness they awakened is real, or if this is more a Turing Test situation. I wonder if robots developed any novel cultural systems over time.
Some of the philosophical topics touched upon are interesting to think about, but I wish there would have been a bit more of a back and forth between them on some of these conversations. There are a fair number of instances where it follows a pattern of one of them expressing some thought, and the other one saying "Well have you ever considered that maybe your assumptions about that are wrong?" and the first one being all "Wow I never thought of that, crazy". It feels framed like a one way conversation where one of them is clearly the wise one and one is clearly the ignorant one, and it just switches off which is which between topics.
This whole notion of the "Factory age" and "transition era" is kind of interesting because it feels like the people of this world have turned their back on their history in some ways, like their main preoccupation is distancing themselves from the old ways and not repeating the mistakes of the past. Which is a pretty normal thing, people today certainly have things in the past we don't want to do anymore. Its more of a strong break here, it doesn't seem like there is anything positive to say or remember about this past here, which almost makes the setting feel stagnant. This is largely because its just not relevant to Dex's story to think about the direction that civilization is heading, I just feel like there is some dimension of human nature which is lacking there.
I liked the writing. I don't read much, so I appreciated that this is a fairly short book. The descriptive imagery didn't land for me very well, I never got a clear picture in my head of what anything was supposed to look like, but the dialogue is clear and straightforward.
This author has one of the most positive portrayals of humanity I've ever read. The idea that everyone just immediately agreed to give the robots their rights ajd shut down the factories, is probably the most fantastic thing in the book.
Theres a similar element in the Wayfarer series. In that one humanity realizes that greed and ego has resulted in a Earth so polluted that they will need to flee into space. Apparently with little conflict everyone goes full communist to a moneyless society free of almost any sort of hierarchy
While it's also called a solar punk story, it's also called hopepunk. And the story fills me with hope. I think we need aspirational stories of humanity as much as we need grounded stories of how to fight to make things better.
I can see why it gets recommended so much as a prime example of Solarpunk. I like that this world seems like people are generally happy and at peace, aside from certain personal problems.
Chambers dedicates her book to "anybody who could use a break". Did Dex's burnout seem realistic to you? Can you relate? What do you think about how the author show's Dex finding themself again?
I have related deeply to Sibling Dex. I'm briefly in Chicago and I cannot wait to "get the fuck out of the city". There are awesome things here and also I'm surrounded by people in a way that is exhausting me. But more so the need for a change. I have lost myself as a person unrelated to being a mental health professional, a caregiver, a higher ed employee, an advocate. I don't know that I even exist outside of those roles anymore.
But going on walkabout or on tea-monk-about (which I would be ⊹₊⟡⋆Amazing⋆⟡₊⊹ at) is just not an option for me. And I doubt I would find a thoughtful Wildbuilt robot.
When discussing whether or not to leave the road to collect water - and disturb the ecosystem in the process - Dex argues that 'everybody thinks that they are the exception to the rule and that is exactly where the trouble starts' Mosscap argues 'sometimes damage is unavoidable.
Which of these two statements represents your own view? Or somewhere in between?
I agree with both of them. We as humans are driven to survive and most of us in the modern world are lucky enough to never be in a situation where we need to test that.
We never know who we'll be in a crisis, only who we would want to be. If I were dying of thirst would I take a harmful action to drink water? I'm going to say probably. We know that folks stuck at sea will drink seawater even though they know it actually makes things worse.
The decision comes in with want rather than need, I think. Do I want to figure out how to eat less meat so that I harm both animals and the world less? I own a piece of property, do I want to figure out how to compost so that I produce less waste? Related, do I want to try to save it compost every bit of what I grow for myself or do I share it with the food pantry? The easy answer never seems to be the moral answer.
In the interest of organization - if you want to write anything in response to me or to the book group as a whole, please put it here.
This is written after @Definitelynotafae made their generous offer.
Thank you so much for managing this book club. It's a big commitment and you've done it for a long time, coming up with thoughtful questions no matter what kind of book we were reading.
I wish you all the best with your schedule/life changes!
Thanks for running this book club for so long, I’ve greatly enjoyed the books even if I haven’t always commented or read them on time…
This book club has ended up being more of a part of my life over the last few years than I might have anticipated when we started. I haven't enjoyed all of the books, but I have read all of them. I just wanted to add to the chorus of folks being appreciative to you in particular - but I also wanted to shout out all of the other folks who have taken time to write out their thoughts as we've been going along. Some of the conversation about the books have been as insightful or helpful as I could have asked for.
I for one am interested in reading the next few and would be glad to continue on with whatever this community decides the next version of the book club should look like :)
Thank you for running this book club! I've read / listened to some really interesting stories that I may not have known about otherwise, and I have enjoyed seeing other users' thoughts.
At the recommendation of some others in this group, I read the sequel to this book shortly after reading the first one for book club. Some of what I'm thinking about is only revealed in the second book, but it's just straightforward information about the society that Sibling Dex lives in. I will try my best to avoid any spoilers (not that these books are really ruined in any way by "spoilers").
As I read these two books, I found myself constantly comparing and contrasting with one of my favorite books, The Dispossessed. Again, trying to avoid any spoilers, the main character in The Dispossessed lives in an anarcho-syndicalist society. A lot of the book is dedicated to describing this society. Quite in contrast to Monk & Robot's Panga, the anarcho-syndicalists in The Dispossessed live on an arid desert moon called Anarres.
In Monk & Robot, how exactly humans are taught to participate so fully and freely and communally in their society is completely elided. It's sort of implied that once such a structure exists, it would be so intrinsically appealing that people would simply continue to perpetuate it. It's a very hopeful (and beautiful) view of humanity at its best.
In The Dispossessed, there are much more deliberate structures dedicated to perpetuating the anarchist principles of their society. Children are reared in collective schooling facilities, spending little time with their biological parents. They're discouraged from any thinking that could be interpreted as possessive ("egoizing"). The society of Anarres sees the kind of family organization that raised Sibling Dex as completely incompatible with their non-hierarchical society.
It's not explicitly stated, but there is a suggestion in The Dispossessed that the barren nature of Anarres contributes to the success of the society. Again, this is sort of taking the opposite stance to Monk & Robot's Panga. The sheer amount of effort that needs to go into keeping their society alive on Anarres seems to encourage a dedication to communal living and volunteerism — everyone can see how quickly they will perish if everyone doesn't do their part.
The societies have a lot in common, though. They both view the not-so-distant past of forced labor (via robots on Panga, via prisons on Anarres/Urras) with a sense of horror and (depending on the generation) even disbelief. They have a level of sexual freedom and celebration of bodies that far surpasses most modern societies. They value labor and communal volunteerism very highly.
I have more thoughts but not more time to write about them at the moment, so I guess I'll post this as is now. Curious if anyone else was thinking about Anarres while they read about Panga, though!
I was not thinking about Anarres but you did make me think of Butler's Xenogenesis series where humanity is saved from the fallout of nuclear war by the Alien Ooankali. Much is made about how hierarchial humanity is compared to the more collaborative Ooankali who have 3 sexes, with the ooloi third sex being where all the DNA mixing and matching occurs in reproduction. And that nature of ours will lead us to destroying ourselves again.
Much is made about whether the Ooankali 's need to swap DNA and create children with both species genes is infringing on the "rights"of the rescued humans (and the species) to remain as we are. To them, they're saving us. To us, they're destroying us. But first we tried to destroy ourselves... So are they right?
There's a lot about colonization and collaboration and it's not a utopia, whether one could exist or not, but that theme of hierarchical humans runs throughout.
So your thought process brought me to a different one. But I'm going to go back to the Dispossessed now
I havent read The Dispossessed so I didnt make that comparison, but I had a similar comparison to the video game Sable.
Sable is a story about a coming of age event for a girl living on what seems to be an alien planet largely dominated by rocky sand dunes, and have a similar kind of communal semi anarchist lifestyle where people choose what role they want to adopt in society by going on a journey to explore and find themselves.
Going in with no expectations, the story does feel slow to start, but the setup is worth it. The second half of the novella is truly beautiful, and I really am glad I experienced it.
The philosophical discussions between the main characters don't go too in-depth; rather they go just far enough enough to stimulate thoughts in reader's mind that put modern issues into perspective.
I felt good after this. I think I learned some things that I can apply in real life. How often does a book do that?
During their first attempt to make tea for someone, Dex discovers their own ignorance of the process. What do you think of their response to that experience? Did you ever have to 'fake it until you made it?'
Absolutely felt this way during my first attempts at being a therapist, and I went to school for it! You make so many missteps when you're learning. I think Dex could have gotten more guidance but was being stubborn in choosing not to. Been there too.
What moment or moments of connection and growth between Dex and Mosscap did you find most compelling or interesting?
You are allowed to just live. You don't need to justify that or earn it.
God I love this quote. I feel it deep in my soul when the modern world is stressing me out.
I also feel it when I talk to people who are vocally obsessed with “living their life to the fullest”, which usually means a lot of expensive vacations or extreme hobbies. Travel is rewarding and a fulfilling life is a nice (albeit challenging) goal but for whatever reason I just don’t feel that same drive.
Right up there with
I feel you a lot. I want to do more things than I can. That's ok. I'm still just ok to exist. I don't need to find my purpose. That purpose is to be.
I really loved this quote, and it captures a way of living and seeing the world that I strive toward.
I also really appreciated the implication that even in a society that has no currency or capital, whose resources are shared freely (and seemingly so abundant that essentially no one is ever without), humans still feel the need to be "productive".
What do you think about the world building?
Dex's vehicle is described as a wagon. How big do you think it was and what did it look like?
I love Dex's wagon. In my head it looks like a version of the actor wagons in Girl Genius.
When I was a kid I lived next to a campground, so I feel like I've seen just about every type of rv there is. The closest I've seen to a second story is the bed that goes over the cab, so I think I probably pictured something different before the second floor was mentioned but then it shifted into something more fantastical.
This is very close to my imagination. I've tried adding a lot of gadgets to it but it comes back to something like this.
I really like this one. I had a lot of trouble with the idea that it was big enough to live in but also easily pulled with pedal power.
I'm assuming a very good set of gears!
I now can't remember if this was actually suggested or if my own use of a pedal-assisted ebike just filled in the gap, but I had assumed that there was a battery-powered/solar-charged motor that assisted the pedaling. Even a very good set of gears would only get you so far pulling all of your possessions up a hill, every if they were very, very light!
It is electric (and thus I believe solar), you're right! I just forgot!
Did you or do you plan to read the next book in the series?
I read both books a year or two ago and highly recommend the sequel.
Same. The first sits with me the most, and the second does a bit more world building. But I just want to hear the crickets with Dex again.
I might. I was a little disappointed in this one. But I also felt like it ended right when I was starting to get into it.
Yeah I think the second book is basically just the second half (or maybe middle third?) of the story. There's some beauty in the brevity of the first book, but it's definitely worth picking up the second one if you think you'd want more Monk & Robot!
What did you expect from the book? Did the story surprise you?
What else do you want to say in response to the book?
This is the first book I've read with such casual/commonly accepted usage of neutral pronouns and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's not what this book was about. It was never called out and it never felt forced, it was part of the world's language and it felt completely natural.
Mosscap (and Murderbot) have helped me get more comfortable with "it" as a non-insulting pronoun. And I loved that Dex was never hinted to be anything "assigned at birth" they get to just be "them".
If you haven't read her Wayfarers series she features aliens with multiple genders, who switch genders as part of their lifecycle, who shift if/when they desire (with the help of tech!), who have 4 genders in their species, who have a plural "they" gender due to being a merging of a person and a virus, who are all gender neutral until puberty. There's a default neopronoun used for nonbinary people in the intergalactic mishmash language they all speak that isn't "they".
It's pretty neat.
I'll check it out, thank you!
I'm fashionably late as usual, but I've taken a break from my own reading list and this was the perfect palate cleanser.
Wild-Built is my first Becky Chambers book, though I've a few in my backlog. I went in expecting a sci-fi story about robots and a futuristic society. What I got was far more human, and very down to Earth.
It's an intimate story. We spend a lot of time in the head of Sibling Dex, knowing them as they know themselves. Their ennui and dissatisfaction. Their uncertainty and vulnerability.
How many of us can relate to not knowing what we want to do in life? Quite a few, I imagine.
I thought it led well into the final message, as delivered by the plucky robot, that it's okay to not have a purpose. That we are not defined by our aspirations. We have innate value in simply existing, as animals do, and any meaning beyond that is self-determined.
In the context of the story, this seems to run somewhat counter to the religion of their world. Vocation is core to their beliefs, and seems inseparable to one's identity. In many ways, I think that parallels our own world. We define ourselves by our jobs, and let the actually-interesting things about us — our pursuits, experiences, and dreams — take a back seat.
It also reminded me of the argument that religion defines purpose in life, and that atheists must thus live without purpose. This notion has never sat right with me. So what if life is meaningless? In choosing our own purpose — or lack thereof! — we give life meaning. If I want to watch stalagmites all day, then that's something that's meaningful to me. So I appreciated this final note, as Mosscap's message really resonated for me.
Thematically, I found the focus on tea to be interesting, especially after reading Tea Girl a few months ago. It seems that in both stories, tea served a restorative role. Here, it allowed one to slow down; to take a moment away from busy modern life to just breathe, and let go of burdens.
At this point, I'd like to broach the topic of gender. I fully recognize that I'm ill-equipped to navigate this topic comfortably on Tildes, and likely don't know all the correct words. But its relevance here was meaningful for me, and was a large part of my takeaway from this novella, so I'd like to touch on it.
Dex is nonbinary. At no point did the author give any indication of their sex at birth, and I think this was very intentional. Only once is their preferred pronoun even mentioned, and it's during an introduction.
In principle, I applaud this approach. I feel that representation is often at its best when it just is — showing regular people living their lives. Yet I have to admit that I also found it... not uncomfortable, but maybe harder to connect with the character as a result.
I think there were two hurdles for me.
First, every time I read "them" in the first few chapters, I had a moment of involuntary confusion in wondering who the second person was. This didn't hurt my enjoyment, but did feel like little speed bumps in reading, causing me to slow down before proceeding.
Second, I found it difficult to construct an image of Dex in my head. I didn't know if they were short, tall, masculine, feminine. Did they have a rounded face, a squared jaw? I hadn't realized how dependent I was on knowing a discrete gender to help inform that image, and how it would short circuit my brain to instead put a question mark over someone's appearance.
To be clear, this isn't a complaint. It was a realization for me that I was using gender as a shortcut in all the wrong ways. I appreciated that this story invalidated that assumption for me, even if it made the book more difficult to get into.
By the end, I felt much more comfortable with both aspects. The speed bumps had leveled out, and I felt like I knew Dex well enough that I no longer needed to know what they looked like. As Mosscap said, they just were, and that's enough.
I'm not claiming that I was able to completely rewire my brain in just 150 pages, but I think it helped. I'd like to expose myself to more media of this type, and have already ordered the next book in the series which I plan to start soon.
I'd like to end on a note of appreciation for @boxer_dogs_dance, who has done an incredible job in guiding us during these last two and a half years. Thank you for all that you've done in organizing discussions, voting threads, and coming up with discussion prompts for each book. I wish you the absolute best in your new book club; they're lucky to have you.
Dex and Mosscap are such good non-binary representation, they really do make that "need to know" matter less in a way that helped me deal with my issues with "it" pronouns for people too.
Thanks so much for still adding your thoughts, they were much appreciated!