Automatic Noodle

2025 Goodreads Choice Award Finalist for Best Science Fiction

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?