Automatic Noodle

by Annalee Newitz

Overview

From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.

While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone—or something—is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250357465
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	306,976
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ANNALEE NEWITZ is an American journalist, editor, and author of fiction and nonfiction. They are the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship from MIT, and have written for Popular Science, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post. They founded the science fiction website io9 and served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008–2015, and then became Editor-in-Chief at Gizmodo and Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. Their book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize in science. Their first novel, Autonomous, won a Lambda award.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Terraformers:

"A vibrant, quirky vision of endless potential earned by heroism, love and wit."—The Washington Post

“An ingenious, galaxy-brain book.”—Los Angeles Times

“Newitz always sees to the heart of complex systems and breaks them down with poetic ferocity.”—N. K. Jemisin, author of the Broken Earth trilogy and The City We Became

“So engaging, you could almost miss the pyrotechnic world-building and bone-deep intelligence. Newitz continues doing some of the best work in the field."—James S. A. Corey, author of the Expanse series

"Newitz performs a staggering feat of revolutionary imagination in this hopeful space-opera. . . . With the ethos of Becky Chambers and the gonzo imagination of Samuel R. Delany, this feels like a new frontier in science fiction."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

“Nothing short of magical. After reading The Terraformers you will want to live in Annalee Newitz’s future.”—Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman and producer on Lost and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

"With an intriguing mixture of AI, intelligent animals, cyborgs, and humans, Newitz depicts a complex but hopeful future where environmental consciousness and people’s rights take precedence.”—Buzzfeed

"Magnificently fun.... The Terraformers explores the future effects of climate change, personhood, scientific advances and more with imagination, intelligence and optimism."—Ms. Magazine

"Far-reaching and ambitious but also surprisingly cozy and warm. . . . Newitz has a true gift for digging into weighty issues while maintaining light humor, a delightful queer sensibility, and pure moments of joy."—Booklist, STARRED review

"Warm, imaginative and often funny."—BookPage

“Undoubtedly destined to become a classic of the hopepunk movement . . . If you’ve been looking for an antidote to the apocalypse, this novel is for you."—San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher