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The Book of Bots
Short story & essay collection
- GenresScience Fiction
302 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2026
About the author
James Patrick Kelly
440 books145 followersJames Patrick Kelly (please, call him Jim) has had an eclectic writing career. He has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. His short novel Burn won the Science Fiction Writers of America's Nebula Award in 2007. He has won the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award twice: in 1996, for his novelette “Think Like A Dinosaur” and in 2000, for his novelette, “Ten to the Sixteenth to One.” His fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. He produces two podcasts: James Patrick Kelly's StoryPod on Audible and the Free Reads Podcast (Yes, it’s free). His most recent publishing venture is the ezine James Patrick Kelly’s Strangeways. His website is www.jimkelly.net.
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August 31, 2026James Patrick Kelly’s concept album, The Book of Bots, collects twelve stories and two essays, all dealing with that century-old staple of science fiction, the robot. The collection comes out at a time when the rollout of AI, automation and data centres is, to put it mildly, on the nose. The stories aren’t especially concerned with the broad social, cultural and economic issues posed by these technologies. They are more intimate than that. But the two essays cover this ground. The first, “Comedy of Science”, is an excellent short history of the robot in literature that shows how the concept, as a metaphor for economic and social concerns, has changed over time. “Robots on Parade 2026” is a well-rounded and thoughtful piece on the growth of AI and robotics and the ethical challenges raised by these technologies.
The collection’s first story, “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, written close to thirty years ago, sees Jennifer visit her estranged thespian father, who is suffering from dementia. Living in an artificial suburb constructed to mimic the 20th century, Peter Fancy’s caregiver is a child-sized robotic facsimile of Jennifer, complete with her memories. This comes as a rude shock to Jennifer, who, along with her mother, was abandoned by Peter. But this isn’t an angry story; rather, as Jennifer gets to know her younger, robotic self, it transitions into a sad, sometimes wistful piece about memory and familial love.
In his Foreword, Kelly pairs “Itsy Bitsy Spider” with “Uncanny” (penned seventeen years later) because both stories deal with automatons in a domestic setting. Here, the robot plays the role of boyfriend and, as such, the story is a much lighter and funnier offering than “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, even if I might have rolled my eyes at the jokey ending. (OK, I might have snorted.)
Where the bot in “Uncanny” is sold as a true boyfriend, nookie included, Tate from “Your Boyfriend Experience” is more of a high-end (very high-end) sex-bot. Dakarai has been asked by his partner, Jin—Tate’s primary designer—to test out the sex-bot’s functionality. Not so much the sexy stuff (though Tate’s carnal skills underline the narrative), but how Tate interacts with the world. It’s not entirely shocking when Dak, who gets very little emotional feedback from Jin, becomes attached to Tate. This might be one of my favourite stories in the collection because it’s less focused on the tech and more on raw emotion. Dare I say it, but it’s a rather “literary” story.
“Yukui!” centres on the artificial companion (sex-bot) rather than the customer. When Sprite’s human dies, she’s transferred to the man’s aloof brother. Sprite struggles to deal with the change in ownership but is all the more horrified when she’s offered freedom. This is more the typical “what does a robot do with its freedom?” narrative, and it’s a very good example of the type.
Christ. 500 words into the review and I’m leaving the impression that the collection is wall-to-wall sex-bots (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The other tales (mostly) blend automata with other SF tropes. There’s the familiar but still entertaining “10¹⁶ to 1”, which sees a robot travel back to 1962 to alter history (yes, it involves the Cuban Missile Crisis). Our narrator is the adult Raymond Beaumont, who encountered the bot when he was 12 and has been haunted by the experience ever since.
In the wonderfully imaginative and definitely bonkers “Undone”, a sentient starship cares for its single crew member, Mada, a Trueborn escaping her Utopian enemies by jumping twenty million years into the future. The weirdness of the conceit gradually shifts into a touching love story between Mada and Owen, the wide-eyed poet she meets on a bucolic Earth.
Speaking of infrastructure that cares for its owner, the bittersweet “Bernardo’s House” is told from the perspective of a sentient house constructed to satisfy the needs (yes, sexual—but it’s not a sex-bot!!!!) of its titular owner. One day, Bernardo vanishes, and the world outside changes. The House is alone, that is, until it encounters a homeless girl named Fly. It’s one of several stories, including “Yukui!” and “What It Means To Be A Car”, where Kelly explores what it means for an enslaved consciousness to suddenly taste (and possibly reject) freedom. In contrast, the collection’s most recent piece, the excellent “Je Ne Regrette Rien”, features a group of Chinese robots who crave independence. However, faced with prejudice from a society angered by automation, they have to hide their desires or risk being shut down.
There are other great stories, like “Embot’s Lament”, which sees another time-travelling robot (or AI), forbidden to interfere, help a woman in the past leave her abusive husband; the quirky and disturbing “The Best Christmas Ever”, where a family of bots looks after the last two people on Earth; and the touching and funny “Grace’s Family”, set on an ancient intelligent starship, where the crew (set up as a family unit) help the ship chart and interpret the vastness of the universe.
Putting aside my jokes about the preponderance of sex-bot tales, it’s the diversity of the stories that makes the collection such an enjoyable and fascinating read.
The collection’s first story, “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, written close to thirty years ago, sees Jennifer visit her estranged thespian father, who is suffering from dementia. Living in an artificial suburb constructed to mimic the 20th century, Peter Fancy’s caregiver is a child-sized robotic facsimile of Jennifer, complete with her memories. This comes as a rude shock to Jennifer, who, along with her mother, was abandoned by Peter. But this isn’t an angry story; rather, as Jennifer gets to know her younger, robotic self, it transitions into a sad, sometimes wistful piece about memory and familial love.
In his Foreword, Kelly pairs “Itsy Bitsy Spider” with “Uncanny” (penned seventeen years later) because both stories deal with automatons in a domestic setting. Here, the robot plays the role of boyfriend and, as such, the story is a much lighter and funnier offering than “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, even if I might have rolled my eyes at the jokey ending. (OK, I might have snorted.)
Where the bot in “Uncanny” is sold as a true boyfriend, nookie included, Tate from “Your Boyfriend Experience” is more of a high-end (very high-end) sex-bot. Dakarai has been asked by his partner, Jin—Tate’s primary designer—to test out the sex-bot’s functionality. Not so much the sexy stuff (though Tate’s carnal skills underline the narrative), but how Tate interacts with the world. It’s not entirely shocking when Dak, who gets very little emotional feedback from Jin, becomes attached to Tate. This might be one of my favourite stories in the collection because it’s less focused on the tech and more on raw emotion. Dare I say it, but it’s a rather “literary” story.
“Yukui!” centres on the artificial companion (sex-bot) rather than the customer. When Sprite’s human dies, she’s transferred to the man’s aloof brother. Sprite struggles to deal with the change in ownership but is all the more horrified when she’s offered freedom. This is more the typical “what does a robot do with its freedom?” narrative, and it’s a very good example of the type.
Christ. 500 words into the review and I’m leaving the impression that the collection is wall-to-wall sex-bots (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The other tales (mostly) blend automata with other SF tropes. There’s the familiar but still entertaining “10¹⁶ to 1”, which sees a robot travel back to 1962 to alter history (yes, it involves the Cuban Missile Crisis). Our narrator is the adult Raymond Beaumont, who encountered the bot when he was 12 and has been haunted by the experience ever since.
In the wonderfully imaginative and definitely bonkers “Undone”, a sentient starship cares for its single crew member, Mada, a Trueborn escaping her Utopian enemies by jumping twenty million years into the future. The weirdness of the conceit gradually shifts into a touching love story between Mada and Owen, the wide-eyed poet she meets on a bucolic Earth.
Speaking of infrastructure that cares for its owner, the bittersweet “Bernardo’s House” is told from the perspective of a sentient house constructed to satisfy the needs (yes, sexual—but it’s not a sex-bot!!!!) of its titular owner. One day, Bernardo vanishes, and the world outside changes. The House is alone, that is, until it encounters a homeless girl named Fly. It’s one of several stories, including “Yukui!” and “What It Means To Be A Car”, where Kelly explores what it means for an enslaved consciousness to suddenly taste (and possibly reject) freedom. In contrast, the collection’s most recent piece, the excellent “Je Ne Regrette Rien”, features a group of Chinese robots who crave independence. However, faced with prejudice from a society angered by automation, they have to hide their desires or risk being shut down.
There are other great stories, like “Embot’s Lament”, which sees another time-travelling robot (or AI), forbidden to interfere, help a woman in the past leave her abusive husband; the quirky and disturbing “The Best Christmas Ever”, where a family of bots looks after the last two people on Earth; and the touching and funny “Grace’s Family”, set on an ancient intelligent starship, where the crew (set up as a family unit) help the ship chart and interpret the vastness of the universe.
Putting aside my jokes about the preponderance of sex-bot tales, it’s the diversity of the stories that makes the collection such an enjoyable and fascinating read.
August 31, 2026
Over the course of the last 30 years JPK has published dozens, if not hundreds of stories. Many of them deal with robots and artificial intelligence, and the idea of a collection pulling together some of the most notable seemed timely.
Rather than the LLMs of today, the stories for the most part deal with embodied intelligences - robots of one kind or another. (It might be a car, for instance.) In an introduction he says he realized some common themes in stories decades apart, showing how he would take a fresh look at a prior concept, based on how robotics and AI have progressed, and how people have thought about it.
These stories all hold up very well. Some have quite an emotional impact. The final story was published early in 2026, and deals with human-level intelligent androids developed in semi-secrecy in China. Should they be allowed to survive and spread their mindsets? Can they be controlled once they become so advanced? Do humans even understand what they created?
Again, very timely.
Rather than the LLMs of today, the stories for the most part deal with embodied intelligences - robots of one kind or another. (It might be a car, for instance.) In an introduction he says he realized some common themes in stories decades apart, showing how he would take a fresh look at a prior concept, based on how robotics and AI have progressed, and how people have thought about it.
These stories all hold up very well. Some have quite an emotional impact. The final story was published early in 2026, and deals with human-level intelligent androids developed in semi-secrecy in China. Should they be allowed to survive and spread their mindsets? Can they be controlled once they become so advanced? Do humans even understand what they created?
Again, very timely.
Want to Read
September 9, 2026Best review I saw was at Locus:
https://locusmag.com/review/the-book-...
He gives the book high marks. Well worth your attention.
Excerpt:
"Exhibiting zest, panache, real emotions and a masterful speculative toolkit, this collection demonstrates that James Patrick Kelly can serve as truthful chronicler of a future as yet unborn."
Available as a $7 ebook. I'm a long-time JP Kelly fan. TBR!
https://locusmag.com/review/the-book-...
He gives the book high marks. Well worth your attention.
Excerpt:
"Exhibiting zest, panache, real emotions and a masterful speculative toolkit, this collection demonstrates that James Patrick Kelly can serve as truthful chronicler of a future as yet unborn."
Available as a $7 ebook. I'm a long-time JP Kelly fan. TBR!
Review of advance copy received from Author
I received an ARC from the author.
I often love a robot story; I also enjoy a well-thought-out AI story. And thus, James Patrick Kelly's The Book of Bots: completely in my wheelhouse.
Covering around 25 years of his career - which is impressive in itself - the range of stories in this collection is fascinating. Some of the robots are actively meant to be caring for humans, in very different ways; stories like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" could come across as cutesy but it is deeply, deeply creepy, from my perspective anyway. Indeed, several of the stories end up crossing into the Creepy realm, because of the way they imagine bots interacting with humans - and, more to the point, humans interacting with bots. "Bernando's House" is, if anything even more creepy than "Itsy Bitsy Spider;" a house has a personality, and a human figure to represent it, aaaaaand then things go weird. "Yukui!" confronts the idea of humans owning bots, and questions of sentience/slavery. "Your Boyfriend Experience" likewise asks questions about humans creating bots to their own specifications, and how that plays out with and around other humans. And "Je ne regrette rien" is kind of the culmination of the stories about human-like bots, and a quest to be more than they have been created to be.
On slightly different notes, "Undone" brings in a sentient spaceship - the concept itself not unique, but the playing-out and ramifications are what make it worth reading. "What it means to be a car" consists of dialogue between a car and a passenger - the only story that has a particularly different narrative structure, and one I enjoyed for that reason.
The collection also has two essays, one about the modern use of bots and one doing a short history of robots/ AI in literature. Both are entirely appropriate in the context of the collection, and add to the overall story of "what do we mean when we talk about bots."
This is a great collection. Highly recommended.
I often love a robot story; I also enjoy a well-thought-out AI story. And thus, James Patrick Kelly's The Book of Bots: completely in my wheelhouse.
Covering around 25 years of his career - which is impressive in itself - the range of stories in this collection is fascinating. Some of the robots are actively meant to be caring for humans, in very different ways; stories like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" could come across as cutesy but it is deeply, deeply creepy, from my perspective anyway. Indeed, several of the stories end up crossing into the Creepy realm, because of the way they imagine bots interacting with humans - and, more to the point, humans interacting with bots. "Bernando's House" is, if anything even more creepy than "Itsy Bitsy Spider;" a house has a personality, and a human figure to represent it, aaaaaand then things go weird. "Yukui!" confronts the idea of humans owning bots, and questions of sentience/slavery. "Your Boyfriend Experience" likewise asks questions about humans creating bots to their own specifications, and how that plays out with and around other humans. And "Je ne regrette rien" is kind of the culmination of the stories about human-like bots, and a quest to be more than they have been created to be.
On slightly different notes, "Undone" brings in a sentient spaceship - the concept itself not unique, but the playing-out and ramifications are what make it worth reading. "What it means to be a car" consists of dialogue between a car and a passenger - the only story that has a particularly different narrative structure, and one I enjoyed for that reason.
The collection also has two essays, one about the modern use of bots and one doing a short history of robots/ AI in literature. Both are entirely appropriate in the context of the collection, and add to the overall story of "what do we mean when we talk about bots."
This is a great collection. Highly recommended.
August 3, 2026
This is a collection of the author's robot and AI stories from late 1990s up and including 2026, along with two short non-fiction articles. Kelly is familiar to me from his columns in Asimov magazine and his seminal story "Think Like a Dinosaur" and this collection does not disappoint. The stories are wide ranging and not repetitive (perhaps with the exception of multiple robot companion stories at the end), indeed, a good number of them are not directly about robots/AIs but include them as an essential element. It's fun to see the evolution of AI concepts over this (rather short) period of time in writing. And the stories range from outer space, time travel, and here on Earth: there's much variety. Some story concepts will be familiar to sf fans (time traveling robot AI intent on changing history, hmmm, where have I seen that? Or the AI mind of a spaceship, etc.). These are great stories and was a lightning quick read for me: recommended.
Note: I was provided an ARC of this book with the expectation of writing an unbiased review.
Note: I was provided an ARC of this book with the expectation of writing an unbiased review.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews