“Ode to the Half-Broken” by Suzanne Palmer

First of all, let me say that I appreciate the note from the publisher that the dog lives. I’ve been burned before.

The protagonist of this book is an unnamed (at least at the beginning) robot living a solitary life in the remains of the New York Botanical Gardens in a post-apocalyptic United States. This changes abruptly when he is, with no warning, incapacitated, and wakes up to find his leg has been stolen by persons unknown. With the help of a cyborg dog named Atticus he’s able to get a replacement (not as good as the original) and the two of them set out to find his leg, as well as why on earth someone would want to have stolen it in the first place.

The book is set in the late 21st century, in the remains of a world that fell to pieces because of climate change, repeated pandemics, and all the wars that came with them. True artificial intelligence was developed during the collapse, and in at least some places humans and mechas are working side by side building new societies amid the ruins. The protagonist soon starts to notice that what has been rebuilt has started to fall apart; rebuilding has always been hugely difficult, but the progress has been backsliding in ways that suggest coordinated action - and one that is, somehow, connected to the protagonist’s leg.

This was enjoyable and satisfying. Enjoyable because I always like well-done books about found family and competent people working together. Satisfying because it’s nice, given, well, everything, to read a book that is both hopeful and with real stakes. (Also satisfying because of more than a handful of winks such as how the original mechas developed during the collapse were slow to be accepted because of the “useless word salads” being sold as AI by the “grifters and snake-oil salesmen” in the 2020s.)

I hate to give a “perfect for fans of [author]” blurb on general principles, but I do think this is going to be a good one for fans of Becky Chambers. Too many of the books that get described thus are low- or zero-stakes (*Legends & Lattes*, I’m looking at you); not many have that vibe while also having serious stakes like the Wayfarers books did.