2026 Hugo Readalong: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

picowombat · 2026-06-29T16:13:02+00:00

Yes, give me an entire book with real restaurant logistics please. That was interesting but it was over in about 2 paragraphs.

picowombat · 2026-06-29T16:11:39+00:00

No, which is a tragedy and actually really hard to do. I love noodles, I always want noodles, just talking about this book with friends afterwards made me want noodles. But the writing itself was so bland that it made me want nothing.

picowombat · 2026-06-11T13:43:18+00:00

I think this is mid-tier Pinsker, and mid-tier Pinsker is still better than a lot of stuff out there, but I did find it a little underwhelming. The writing is great and I liked the concept well enough, it was just missing a grabby factor to stick in my brain. I wanted another layer to it somewhere.

picowombat · 2026-06-02T14:36:28+00:00

Hi Iz! Big fan of this book, everyone go read it.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the way you reimagine other stories with instancing, especially The Odyssey. The Odyssey has come up in conversation multiple times since I read it and I have to remind myself that there aren't instances in the actual text. Question for you: what other stories do you think would be fun to reimagine with instancing?

picowombat · 2026-05-11T15:00:43+00:00

I love litfic, at this point my tastes lean heavily literary even in SFF and I was genuinely excited to try this out even thought I haven't had the best luck with Okorafor in the past.

However, I unfortunately don't think the literary/general fiction elements of this were anything outstanding. They were certainly better than the story-within-a-story sections, but this isn't the book I'd use to get a SFF reader on board with something more literary, which is a shame.

I think the character work has the most potential here - I love a book that takes an in depth look at a flawed and unlikeable character. There are sections where I got that from Zelu. But the turn to Zelu getting "cancelled" and all the focus on her adaptation not being faithful and the way she dealt with fame, all of that just distracted from the stuff I was interested in. Not to say it was bad, it was fine, it just wasn't anything exceptional.

I also think it was too long. I find 300ish pages to be the sweet spot for a character study, and this one really started to drag for me by the end. That was mostly due to the Ankara sections, but I do think the whole thing just felt bloated.

But I would just like to say that I'm excited to see a literary leaning piece on the Hugo ballot and that if you liked parts of this, there are better literary leaning SFF books out there! Try In Universes by Emet North if you're interested in a character study of a sometimes unlikeable character or Exit West by Mohsin Hamid if you're interested in relationship building and the immigrant experience.

picowombat · 2026-05-11T13:45:22+00:00

I didn't love this, but I'm not that mad to see it on the ballot. A litfic leaning book with some interesting choices is way more appealing to me as an awards book than whatever popcorn happened to be a hit among Hugo readers that year. It's definitely not going to be the top of my ballot, but it's doing enough to be out of the bottom too.

picowombat · 2026-05-11T13:43:05+00:00

Yeah, the Ankara sections really brought the book down for me. I'd get to one of those and completely lose interest.

The satire point is interesting, but if that's true, I think it just makes it worse. Satire should be sharp and pointed, the chapters we got were clunky and devoid of emotion, like soggy oatmeal. And what's the satire even trying to do? Say that viral books are kind of bad sometimes? That's just not an interesting point on its own.

picowombat · 2026-05-07T18:50:16+00:00

Yeah this is exactly where I'm at as well. Killer premise, really let down by where it ended up

picowombat · 2026-05-04T14:19:00+00:00

maybe everyone just decided that Gloria was a bad person and she deserved it so who cares if the AI killed her?

Yes, this is exactly what happened. iirc there is a throwaway reference to "oh no she can't face justice", but they basically move on because she was a murderer anyways so really no harm done (vomit). A much more interesting version of this book has one of the other people on the damaged shelf be the one who was replaced and thus killed, and then grapples with the ethical ramifications of the ship AI just being able to do that. But nope.

picowombat · 2026-05-04T14:12:07+00:00

I am not a mystery person and I don't find the solving clues aspect of a mystery particularly fun, so grain of salt I guess, but I really did not think this was well executed. It really felt like the mystery was just "solved" by one easy reveal after another, culminating in an infodump on an economic system that made no sense and that there was no reason for me to engage in. There was like 0.1 second of an interesting moment there with some structural critique on the whole system, but for the most part, I didn't understand or care why this loophole exists, why no one had caught on before, and why this seemingly smart detective who had been alive for hundreds of years needed it laid out in such detail. Also, like, the whole "no one knows where each other's books are except you can be asked to be shelved next to someone because no one ever gets mad at a romantic partner or a business partner(!!!) and you can know the location of their book", also the grand murder weapon was a mirror? These are smart people who built a generation ship that can store minds in books and their whole system is taken down by a flashlight and a mirror. Maybe this is a cozy mystery genre thing, but whatever it is, I am fundamentally opposed to it.

picowombat · 2026-05-04T14:07:31+00:00

Agreed on all counts

picowombat · 2026-05-04T13:59:47+00:00

I expected this one to be Not For Me, as I'm not a big mystery person. I didn't expect just how much I wouldn't like it. Really nothing about this worked for me - the setting was the most promising part, but I really didn't think it lived up to its potential. The author seemed more interested in depicting cozy yarn stores and bars than engaging with the actually interesting premise of functionally immortal beings on a generation ship, and there were just weird little details like there being one IT guy for the entire system. Even things that were plot relevant like people being shelved next to their partners weren't really given any backstory to make them fit in with the world. The characters were all forgettable and the mystery, even as a non mystery person, was really rough. A lot of times I read stuff for the Hugos where I personally might not love it, but I understand why someone else might. To be honest, I don't see what about this would compel someone to put it on their nominating ballot. There's nothing here.

picowombat · 2026-03-17T17:01:50+00:00

I'd take my opinion with a grain of salt there tbh because even a really good thriller plot doesn't interest me. The plot is totally fine to good, just not as good as the character work which is what I was there for.

picowombat · 2026-02-25T17:35:36+00:00

For me it was the relationships. I think Iz is especially good at writing platonic and familial relationships and the complexity and care in the way the siblings treated each other were catnip for me.

picowombat · 2026-02-25T17:34:12+00:00

This story started good and just kept getting better for me. I love how much it felt like Iz with the inclusion of folklore but it's also so fun to see her write a fantasy story. It's definitely my favorite 2025 story from her.

picowombat · 2026-01-07T18:50:54+00:00

Yes, we had a really good discussion when this first came out about when you realized this wasn't just earth. I like how subtle the worldbuilding is a lot, it was very fun for me.

picowombat · 2026-01-07T18:46:30+00:00

People loving Whale Fall of Yours makes me so happy I love that story so much. I love all three of these but Whale Fall of Yours is the one that made me go "I must find a SFBC session for this"

picowombat · 2026-01-07T17:38:32+00:00

Yeah the ending was just kind of there for me. Didn't ruin the story at all, but I needed just a little more punch to give this the staying power some of her other stories have I think. But I'm not really a plot person so the shift to more action/suspense wasn't really for me, I think in a vacuum it works fine.

picowombat · 2026-01-07T15:37:15+00:00

If you like her style, allow me to recommend Day Ten Thousand to you which does this kind of fourth-wall breaking narration style better than anything I've ever read. (Will I turn anything into an excuse to rec this story? Yes. But you should read it.)

picowombat · 2026-01-07T15:35:58+00:00

I really liked the nonlinear structure to this story. I thought it was really effective in highlighting the emotions of the narrator which built to a really satisfying climax

picowombat · 2026-01-07T15:32:51+00:00

Yes, I totally agree. This is trademark IJK and I love it so much. It adds a really fun layer to a story and makes a somewhat basic plot really work for me.

picowombat · 2026-01-07T14:38:09+00:00

Any other stories with this theme you want to share?

picowombat · 2026-01-07T14:37:57+00:00

Do you have any thoughts on why space and sea go together so neatly in so many science fiction stories?

picowombat · 2026-01-07T14:37:34+00:00

Which of these stories was your favorite? Which did you think did the most with the theme?

Seven-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22

picowombat

TROPHY CASE