Pulled noodles, pulled heartstrings: a review of Annalee Newitz’s Automatic Noodle

We’ve all been told robots will take our jobs. What if they taught us how to resist instead?

The four robots in Annalee Newitz’s new novella, Automatic Noodle, Staybehind, Sweetie, Cayenne, and Hands, do just that. This book has a big appetite despite its slim proportions. It confronts immigration, algorithmic prejudice, misinformation, and debt slavery. While it can’t fully explore all these themes, what emerges is a compelling model of communal resistance, exemplified by a robot-run, hand-pulled noodle shop in near-future San Francisco, where California has seceded from America after a brutal civil war.

In 2064, four abandoned HEEI (human equivalent embodied intelligence) robots wake in a flooded San Francisco ghost kitchen. Their owners have fled to America to escape fraud charges. Though technically citizens in post-war California, HEEI can’t own property or vote – leaving them vulnerable to being shut down and sold for parts. To survive, they hack city infrastructure and sentient blockchain contracts to open a noodle restaurant. Their success draws a coordinated review-bombing campaign from American operatives targeting California’s HEEI businesses.

Unlike the healing fiction trend from Japan and South Korea where bookshops and tea houses are safe havens, the cozy noodle shop in Automatic Noodle is under constant threat. The HEEI fight daily against systemic issues. Their hope is earned, not given.

Staybehind (military strategist), Sweetie (contract specialist), Cayenne (business operations), and Hands (noodle chef) unite to combat prejudice, using their specialized skills to stave off annihilation. The name of their restaurant, Automatic Noodle, started as a slur, but they decide to own it, making it part of their brand. When coordinated negative reviews tank their food delivery app ranking, they go old school, building an antique HTML website to sell their noodles instead.

The novella joins a growing movement in science fiction that rejects apathy and cynicism in favour of stories that embrace hope, community, and kindness in the face of adversity. Think Monk & Robot by Becky Chambers and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

Automatic Noodle is billed as a “cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop.” But it’s more than escapist fiction: it’s a battle cry disguised as comfort food. While it bit off more than it could chew and gives some themes surface treatment, it shows that resistance isn’t always about violence – sometimes, it’s about fighting for the right to make the perfect bowl of hand-pulled noodles and share them with friends.

Chris Greer is the co-owner of Nottawa Cottage Bookstore. He grew up in Creemore and has a degree in English from the University of Toronto.