Today Automatic Noodle is officially in stores! It’s being called a “cozy” book, and I will definitely accept that label. I wrote it after spending three years researching the history of American psychological and cultural warfare for my previous book, Stories Are Weapons. After all that time thinking about how people torture each other with words, I desperately needed to produce words that would comfort me.
That’s why I centered the story around my favorite food: noodles.
And that’s why I set it in the city I have loved for my whole life: San Francisco.
The main characters are robots in part because I grew up watching Johnny Sokko and his best friend Giant Robo. I couldn’t think of a cozier image than Johnny riding safely in the huge metal hand of his flying robot buddy, fighting giant eyeballs and other weird stuff.
People have asked me many times why I put noodles together with robots, and the answer really is that I wanted to write about things that make me feel safe. I wanted to imagine a world where the war over the future of the United States is over, and we are all recovering, rebuilding, and finding community again.
I think one of the most important ingredients in cozy fiction is the acknowledgement of trauma or horror lurking at the edge of the narrative. We have few reasons to crave safety if the world is already set right. So yes, there are dark undercurrents in Automatic Noodle: PTSD from war, cruel online propaganda, and the difficulties my characters face from robophobes who want them to be enslaved again.
But coziness wins. Through friendship and hard work, the robots give back to their community by making the best noodles they can. And through their service, they figure out who they want to be.
On Sunday, I launched Automatic Noodle at an event hosted by Noe Valley Books. I was in conversation with AI researcher Alex Hanna (co-author of The AI Con) and we had an awesome crowd.
This week and next, I’ll be continuing the book tour in LA, Phoenix, STL, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. I’ll be in conversation with incredible writers, journalists, scholars, and even an expert in robot law! All the infos are here at the link, and all the shows are free. Come out to say hi!
Also! If you’ve read this far, and are in the U.S., you have a chance to win a free paperback of Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, the book that made me want to eat noodles with robots. Just reply to this email with the phrase “give me a free book!” and if you’re one of the first 15 people to reply I’ll send you a signed copy this month. It’s actually good backstory for Automatic Noodle, which has a subplot about psyops.
See you on the road! Stay cozy.