Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Murderbot meets Redshirts in a delightfully humorous tale of robotic murder from the Hugo-nominated author of Elder Race and Children of Time.

To fix the world they must first break it, further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service.

When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away.

Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.

Sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming.

'Service Model' is neither a good nor a bad book, it just is. If you like well developed and three dimensional characters or a tense plot, this book is not for you. It's essentially about a journey through a Dystopian world, through the perspective of an android. Which actually sounds really appealing but the execution of it wasn't as I had hoped. Lots of people said it's a thought provoking book but I'd argue with that. I haven't gotten any new perspectives or thoughts from this that I hadn't already considered, though it could he as well that I missed something. But I suppose that's more of a subjective thing and people new to science fiction might see it differently and appreciate the book more than me :)

The author did bring up some interesting and creative concepts but there's only so much you can write in a 400 page book. So, he didn't really go fully in depth with any of these topics. I think some of those concepts would've done well as short stories (or maybe even whole books).

Overall, it wasn't a bad book but since the author clearly wanted to focus on a philosophical journey through this world, while however failing to convey any new perspectives/ ideas to me or creating any interest in the characters, it was often rather tedious to read. It didn't help that the writing was also a bit repetitive. Nevertheless, I truly liked some of the concepts that were brought up and think others might enjoy the book more than me as I also went into it with different expectations.