A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
A tea monk and a robot explore human needs on the moon Panga.
Becky Chambers’s 2022 solarpunk novella, the second in her Monk & Robot series, was released by Tor.com on July 12, 2022. It follows A Psalm for the Wild-Built. The book earned the 2023 Locus Award for Best Novella and was also a finalist for that year’s Hugo Award.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Becky Chambers
- Pages
- 160
- Preceded by
- A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- Series
- Monk & Robot #2
- Genre
- Science fiction
- Publisher
- Tor.com
- Published
- July 12, 2022
- Language
- English
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- In 2018, Tor Books commissioned Chambers to write a two-book novella series within the solarpunk genre.
- The first novel in the series, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, was released on July 13, 2021.
Synopsis
After meeting in A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Dex the tea monk and Mosscap the robot travel through human communities on the moon Panga. Mosscap, sent as an ambassador after centuries of no contact, asks every human the question "What do people need?"—a question agreed upon by the gathered robots. Along the way, they encounter various characters, including Dex's family, who offer different answers, revealing the difficulty of the question.
Reception
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association saw A Prayer for the Crown-Shy become a bestseller. The Washington Post ranked it among 2022's top science fiction and fantasy novels. The Big Issue commended the book, while writer Maya Gittelman called it "a bit cheekier than Psalm, but no less of a meditative warm hug." It earned a 2022 Nebula Award nomination for Best Novella, then took home the 2023 Locus Award in the same category.
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