A quiet, meditative sequel to the first novella in this series. I loved reading about Mosscap experiencing this world that we first saw through Sibling Dex's eyes. It's such a beautiful series, and I really enjoyed the questions Mosscap and Dex posed and the understanding that not all questions have answers.

I will forever read everything Chambers writes.

Her books feel like home, like a warm mug of tea.

I kept catching myself laughing throughout this book. I cared about the characters and their future... can't wait to read more by her.

“You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be.”

Is there a more delightful, thought-provoking, and utterly healing series than Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot books? I contend not. A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY is the second novella in this solarpunk universe that follows a nonbinary tea monk (Dex) and their inquisitive robot friend (Mosscap) from the wilds as they journey together and tackle one of humanity’s biggest questions: what do we need? In the first book, A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, these two discovered each other; in this second book, they travel into different populated areas together so that Mosscap can get to know humans and bring back information to their robot community, separated from people for several hundred years. I’m absolutely enamored with both of these characters and I loved that this book was more focused on their companionship and restorative bond. This series is so hopeful, beautiful, and authentic. It makes you want to flee into the woods and also be completely present wherever you are in your life, to dive into existential quandaries and also learn to be satisfied with just being, to seek deep & meaningful connection with others and also love your own company. Firing my therapist because Dex and Mosscap are all I need!! Thanks to Tordotcom and Macmillan Audio for the review copies; this book is out 7/12. Also, the audiobook, narrated by Em Grosland, is excellent!

(No content warnings that I noted.)

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this title.

I was a big fan of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and this sequel did not disappoint. These novellas just feel like a short, wholesome break from a long day. The duology reminds you to take a moment to enjoy the simple things in life and not sweat the big stuff.

Now that I've read the second one, I also think I have a better way to pitch the series. The books feel like an atmospheric combination of Star Trek: The Next Generation with a Ghibli movie. Yes, their society has issues, but they've managed to build a better civilization than we have now through cooperation. Like TNG, you see how their society has gotten on with sustainability and a lack of currency, and you marvel at whether that's even possible within our current society. Then there's that Ghibli sense of wonder at the creative ways they've managed to rebuild, from treetop villages to towns made of repurposed landfill waste.

This series is a must-read for anyone who's a fan of the current wave of hopepunk in the sci-fi genre.

Delightful, quirky, and overwhelmingly beautiful, the newest Monk + Robot will have readers laughing and crying on every page. As Sibling Dex and Mosscap begin their tour around the world, Chambers gives readers a taste of humanity from an outside lens. Mosscap's offbeat observations and philosophical tangents kept me entertained throughout this quick (but meaningful!) read.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!*

Oh, I really loved this book. I think I loved it more than the first one.

There were so many good bits in this very short book. I absolutely LOVE the idea of pebs! Like, that is just totally how our society should work, recognizing our value and how we all work together. I especially loved what Sibling Dex said about folks who have a debt of pebs, and how that means they need the community’s help. Like, YES! Folks aren’t living in poverty because they want to be, they just need a bit of help.

I also loved Mosscap’s wonder at everything. It really reminded me of how we take so much of the natural world for granted when it’s really quite spectacular. It reminds me a little bit of birding; someone can walk down a sidewalk or a trail and they see what they want to see. When you actually start looking, it’s amazing what you will see. Today I was out at an activity with a group of people and I saw/heard 10 different species of local bird, and I’m not sure that the others even noticed.

There was an absolutely heartbreaking bit with a fish that just about made me cry.

The ending was lovely. Deep discussions followed by absolute loveliness.

I can’t recommend this series enough.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

So everything I loved about A Psalm for the Wild-Built is present in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. By which I mean, this is a gentle, healing, beautiful book that also doesn’t shy away from the reality of sadness and lostness, or the general complexity of humans and human relations.

Like, Psalm for the Wild-Built the plot is largely incidental: having returned from their trip to the wilderness, Sibling Dex is now Mosscap’s guide and companion as the pair of them tour the local villages so that Mosscap can ask the question it has been tasked with: what do humans need. Also like Psalm, the book has a light, picaresque quality that makes it a swift, accessible read—though that accessibility should not be taken for simplicity because Prayer builds upon, and is still wrangling with, the same philosophical and existential ideas that gave Psalm such depth and resonance.

Sibling Dex’s mental health—their inability to allow themselves the peace it was once their calling to give to others—continues to play a significant role in the narrative and, once again, I was really comforted by the way this was handled. I think anyone who has ever suffered with any sort of mental health type thing will be familiar with deep alienation that accompanies it: it can very much feel like you live in a perfect world, surrounded by people who love you, and yet there is still something gracelessly, ungratefully wrong with you. For Sibling Dex, of course, this is literally true in terms of the setting itself (a utopia in all but name) but, for the reader, it’s a perfect of allegorical reflection of a very specific mental health moment.

I know I spoke about this a little in my review of the first book, but I need to reiterate it here because it’s so important to me. Without context, it seems bizarrely negative to say I loved that Sibling Dex has mental health issues and exists in a world where human unhappiness is real and allowed to be real, despite the fact that humanity as a whole has learned to live in harmony both with the natural world and (mostly) with each other. I’ve used the word utopian a lot, but I guess the setting would more accurately be described as aspirational. But there’s a danger, in general, I think when we talk about utopian/aspirational settings to kind of *flatten* individual humanity into a kind of consensus of assumptions about what moral virtue is or how happiness can best be found. Which kind of ends up leading to this situation where, say, people with mental health issues have just sorta been … written out of our vision of an optimistic future? And I mean, like, thanks? I don’t think my existence is oppositional to a more compassionate and functional society. And once you’ve ditched the mentally ill you’re in this whole eugenics-ey groove without even noticing how you got there: I mean, what about people with disabilities, and queerness is kind of complicated, and would it just be easier all-round if everyone was white.

Whereas a truly aspirational society—an aspirational society that we don’t need to live on a fictional moon in an nebulous future after a robot uprising to works towards—is one that can accept humanness and humanity as a multifaced thing. Not one that reduces us to less than we are.

Anyway, if I had to say something even remotely evaluative about the book, I’d say it suffers mildly—like a mouse’s squeak of mildly, that’s how mildly—from having a less well-defined journey than the first book. Psalm is a series of strung-together scenes leading to the specific end point at the abandoned hermitage. In Prayer, because Sibling Dex and Mosscap are visiting villages mostly at random, the story is more a collection of incidents. I did come up with a slightly stretched metaphor about the first one being like a series of beads upon a rosary and the second more like a collection of psalms but then I remembered the first one is Psalm and the second one is Prayer, so I was talking nonsense. Point is: this one, arguably, maybe, if you give a damn, might feel a tiny bit less structured than the first one. I didn't give a damn. I loved it anyway.

Also on a purely personal note—because I am obsessed with robots—I was kind of hoping to meet more robots, or at least learn a little more about them … but ultimately, like all books about robots, these are books about people, and it wouldn’t ultimately make sense for the narrative and emotional arcs of the story to introduce more robots to us. So that isn’t really a complaint, just a random public confession about my intense feelings for robots. Sorry about that. But if, like me, you're secretly hoping to meet more robots, you won't. You honestly won't really feel like you're missing anything, but temper your expectations regardless.

We do meet a diverse and interesting collection of humans, though, including a … I hesitate to say love interest … a friendly casual sex interest for Sibling Dex (the way this encounter is handled is so well done: there’s attraction, honesty and mutual respect on both sides, and breakfast, but no expectation of anything more or different between them at this time), a representative of group of humans who have chosen to reject all technology (again, this is handled with the delicacy that is typical of this author’s writing) and we get to meet Sibling Dex’s family. Who are A Lot in the best/worst way.

Much like Psalm, Prayer isn’t really a book in which anything happens per se: there’s no drama, any conflict is resolved through care and conversation, and—as such—as there isn’t really a climax, at least not in the traditional sense. What there is, though, is a intentional non-resolution of the emotional journey of both characters, a non-resolution that encompasses both their togetherness and their individuality, and a non-resolution that is so stunningly tender, so exquisitely hopeful, that I cried when reading it and I am literally crying right now trying to write about it. Which is making it fucking hard to type.

Also I don’t mean to speak of it so vaguely, but I genuinely don’t want to spoil it. Just trust me when I tell you it is perfect, it is beautifully judged, and—if the first book spoke to you in any way—it is everything you need.

The other only thing I’ll say is that I’m going to try to stop thinking of myself as a neurotic, damaged, mentally ill introvert. I’m going to try say simply that I’m crown-shy. And remember that, once upon a time, an author I’d never met and will never speak to sang a psalm and whispered a prayer for me and everyone like me.

A great second instalment in the Monk & Robot series. Thank goodness, because I could read these books forever. They are one of the highlights of my year. They fill your heart, and they make you feel right at home.

While character focused is how I would describe all of Becky Chambers’ books, she also has an amazing knack for making the setting such an integral part of the story. In their other books, the settings have come to life in the form of helpful emotive AI architecture. In Prayer for the Crown Shy, it’s a feat that we return to a fairly simplistic futuristic planet, but still get the sense of it purposeful complexity. Everything on this planet is run with mindfulness to the planets needs and respect for it’s limited resources: “solarpunk”. You see new towns, and old ones, in new light from Mosscap’s naive and curious perspective. He interacts with everything and everyone so earnestly. This allows the reader a deeper dive into the thoughtfully detailed culture Chambers has created, but without bogging down the pace of the book. You actually learn and submerge yourself into the story quite thoroughly for such a short read.

This book mostly putters along with a sense of wanderlust; the drive is set primarily by our protagonists search for meaning and sense of self. Dex’s story of self doubt and aimlessness are written with an insightful compassion. I would be surprised if there was any reader who didn’t find some recognition with their inner struggles. These feelings come to a head when old beliefs are challenged by the people they encounter on their journey. In this leg of their travels they return home for the first time in years, and stop in towns adverse to their new robot companion, I love how these conflicts are given more space to breath and provide more depth to these universal topics in such an eloquent manner.

This book is wholesome, relatable and hopeful. This is exactly the kind of book we need published. Perfect for a reader to recharge after the latest thriller, grim dark fantasy, or epic literary novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan – Tor/Forge for providing an eARC in exchange for a review.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers is the sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built and follows on immediately from the events of that book. Sibling Dex and Mosscap emerge from the wild area and begin a journey across Panga to introduce Mosscap to humanity and ask what they need. The story is slow and meandering in a very good way, mirroring their travels as they encounter different communities. Along the way, they investigate the nature of personhood, the things a person needs if everyone has their basic needs met, purpose and fulfillment, and the appreciation of small pleasures and small details in the world. This is such a hopeful read in the way it portrays the society in Panga and I kept stopping to reread sections over. This isn’t the kind of plot-driven book that grabs you and keeps you reading through excitement, but I found it very meditative, something that invites you to pick it up, read a few pages or a chapter, and walk away to think about it. I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed A Psalm for the Wild-Built and would recommend the two books together to anyone who is looking for short, hopeful, contemplative reads.

This was a very good follow up to A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I loved seeing the further adventures of Sibling Dex and Mosscap. This series does such a good job of touching on subjects such as mental health. I'm not the hugging type person but that's what I compare this book series to, getting a nice warm hug from someone you care about and who cares about you. While there might be people who wouldn't care for this series it's still one that I'll recommend to everyone!

Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series returns with A Prayer For The Crown-Shy, continuing the charming tales of Sibling Dex and their robot companion, Mosscap. In true Chambers fashion, Monk And Robot delights as much as it examines big questions of introspection, self-reflection, and the ever-changing needs of humanity.

After meeting in the robot-inhabited wilderness, Sibling Dex and Mosscap return to the human lands of their home moon. Dex sends ahead, heralding their arrival, and the two become the Monk and Robot equivalent of niche internet micro-celebrities, drawing awe in the populations of the moon’s outer villages. Sibling Dex serves as Mosscap’s guide, their tea service left behind in favor of aiding the robot in its quest to learn about humanity. However, as Dex watches Mosscap explore the world, they begin to wonder about their own place in it. This novella sees Dex and Mosscap jump from town to town, discovering what makes each unique. All the while, Dex uncovers hidden truths about themself.

If you enjoyed A Psalm For The Wild-Built, you’ll love A Prayer For The Crown-Shy. And if you didn’t like Psalm, try again. More than just another Monk And Robot story, Crown-Shy expands the world, the concepts, and the characters in meaningful ways. Crown-Shy feels like the second half of the story Psalm began, making the pair a must-have for folks who want the full story. Where Wild-Built was a Sibling Dex-centered book, Crown-Shy shines the spotlight on Mosscap. The robot’s antics, seen through Sibling Dex’s eyes, lends the world a sparkling sheen. Everything interests Mosscap, no matter how mundane Sibling Dex originally believes it to be. Sibling Dex sees their world through new, mechanical eyes, and their relationship with Mosscap reads like a true-to-life friendship. At times, Sibling Dex is annoyed by their new companion’s quirks. But for the most part, they’re discovering new things because Mosscap is eager to learn.

The central relationship whisks the story along. Crown-Shy is only 160 pages or so, but there’s a lot of love and reflection within those pages. Sibling Dex, having abandoned tea service in favor of Mosscap’s escapades, begins to grapple with bigger questions about their existence. A life serving other people can be meaningful and fulfilling. But when it comes at the expense of knowing their self-worth or personal desires, it begins to feel vapid. Though Sibling Dex finds temporary purpose in guiding Mosscap through the world of humans, they allow their uncertainty about a life of service to fester. They stand on the precipice of grand personal change, but their refusal to step over the threshold begins to poison all their interactions with Mosscap and those around them.

None of this is to say Dex is mean or rude. Not by a long shot. Instead, the story has moments of frustration, moments of understanding, and moments of uncertainty throughout. Chambers has a way of hinting at what’s below the surface, then driving the lesson home with an open and honest conversation between characters.

That’s precisely what happens here, and Crown-Shy has a unique, unexpected ending that left me with a smile. It carries on the story A Psalm For The Wild-Built started, but it brings the narrative in new, creative directions. It’s one of my favorite 2022 reads so far, and I can’t wait for more from this delightful series of novellas.

Rating: A Prayer For The Crown-Shy – 9.0/10
-Cole

A Modern Mrs Darcy team member review (Shannan) from our 2022 Summer Reading Guide:

If you received the 2021 Summer Reading Guide and hung around MMD Land after, you know that I absolutely adore A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which is the first book in the Monk and Robot Series. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the second. Although currently set to release on July 15th, I was fortunate enough to get an advanced reader’s copy. Picking up where Psalm left off, we follow Mosscap, accompanied by Sibling Dex, as it meets with humans to ask the question: What do humans need? It’s an interesting question and left me thinking what my answer would be. Like Psalm, this book left me with all the good “feels”.

This and the first book have been such gentle peaceful reads. They are both short and the pages will fly by. I’d recommend this series to a stressed out science fiction reader. They’re hopeful and they’re peaceful. Read these and relax. Oh, and I really admire the way that all the characters this author writes are just ordinary people living their lives even when they aren’t humans.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the follow-up to Becky Chambers’ Hugo- (and Subjective Chaos) nominated A Psalm for the Wild-Built. And this one may be even better than the first book. It keeps following Sibling Dex and Mosscap on their journey, and it gets more personal this time. A major plot element is Mosscap getting “injured” and having a part that needs replacing – along with all of the philosophical considerations that come with it. In A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Dex and Mosscap interact more with others, and it really feels like the series is coming into its own. I loved how Mosscap’s personality as a curious observer dominated his interactions with the people they met on their travels, and Dex got to see their family again. It is a wonderful quick comfort read, and I desperately want more.

5/5 stars.

A huge thank-you to the publisher for the ARC, this has no bearing on my honest opinion of the book.

The adventures of Mosscap and Sibling Dex continue in this charming sequel. What appears on the surface as a fun adventure between friends dives deep into the meaning of being part of a society, what humans need and other similar topics. Mosscap is a robot on a quest to determine what humans require and Sibling Dex is acting the tour guide.

I picked up the first book in Chamber’s Monk and Robot series on a whim. I heard she writes comfort sci fi and after seeing the gorgeous cover I couldn’t help myself, but I wasn’t expecting much. Funny, it’s now one of my favorite books so you can imagine my sheer joy when I got approved to read an arc of the second book.

The series follows a monk who specializes in a sort of tea-based therapy and a robot they meet in the deep woods. It’s a slow contemplative plot about what it means to exist, and the sequel ruminates on what you need in order to be satisfied with existence. I won’t say much more beyond that because of how short the books are but if you want a book to quiet and comfort the mind, look no further.

I loved the second book just as much as the first and I hope Chambers continues this series because it just makes me so happy to read.

Some Highlights:

~the robot Mosscap’s reactions to all things human
~ the descriptions of nature (I actually learned a lot like what Crown-Shy means, so cool!)
~the utopian society & its history (it's unlike anything I’ve read)
~philosophical musings
~tea making :)

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor for the e-ARC!

I have fallen in love with this series. The character development is so strong that not much has to happen plot wise.

I loved the first book and how it made me feel so I was a little concerned that the second wouldn't live up to it. This book gives me the same feelings and really makes you think about how we live our lives.

Just as good as the first! The friendship between Dex and Mosscap is so inspiring and real. I love how this is set in a time and scenario that is hard for me to imagine, yet I can relate so well to Dex because of the way their character is written. Just such a delight and would highly recommend to anyone!

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy was just as delightful as the first in the series. Becky Chambers is such a unique voice and I dare anyone to read this and not be moved.