Becky Chambers has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I love her writing style, I love her characters, and the universes she creates. My only complaint about her stories are that they never seem long enough for me. I never want them to end. I love her tales, and the moments I spend inside them. I don’t want to get to the last page.

This time out, we are introduced to Sibling Dex, a non-binary monk on the planet of Panga. They have decided to leave behind being a garden monk and become a tea monk.

They set out on their route, determined to learn the position along the way. A tea monk listens to people’s problems and offers them tea. They delight in their job, but even that becomes rote, and recognizable.

Is there nothing more? Is what they do enough?

They decide to change their route, and head out to a long deserted hermitage in the wilds. Shortly after breaking from the main routes, she encounters the depths of the wild, and encounters a wild-built, a robot, Mosscap. The robot is there to ask one question – what do you humans need?

The robots left society a long time ago to become their own, and Mosscap has been sent to investigate what has become of humanity. An unlikely pairing, the two ask questions of one another, travel together, and explore what it means to be who they are.

Mosscap strides out of the forest to ask one question – what do you humans need?

This was a beautiful read. I loved the world Chambers has created here, and the questions both characters ask resonate. And while the answers feel true, accepting them can be harder. But it’s true, I, we, you, they are wonderful, and we should revel in that.

There’s such a sense of peace, joy and beauty in Chambers’ stories, there is hope and there are fascinating characters, relatable and real characters. These are people asking the same questions we do, exploring what it means to be who we are, and where that takes and drives us.

I just want Chambers to keep telling stories forever. I was worried when I finished the Wayfarer Series that I couldn’t be swept up in another of her books, I just loved them so much. Within the first couple pages of A Psalm for the Wild-Built I knew her narratives, characters and universes weren’t a fluke.

Hopeful and powerful, A Psalm for the Wild-Built has introduced us to two incredible characters, Dex and Mosscap, and I look forward to joining their next exploration in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.