Kindle Price:	$2.99
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by [Meredith Katz]

Follow the Author

Meredith Katz

The Cybernetic Tea Shop Kindle Edition

by Meredith Katz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 535 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$2.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$7.99

$8.99

Kindle
$2.99 Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$7.99

3 Used from $8.99 8 New from $7.99

Clara Gutierrez is an AI repair technician and a wanderer. Her childhood with her migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering for too long, so she moves from place to place across retro-futuristic America.

Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master's dream for the shop while slowly breaking down.

They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on...

A F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance. A story about artificial intelligence and real kindness, about love, and the feeling of watching steam rising softly from a teacup on a bright and quiet morning.

Reading age

12 - 18 years
Print length

118 pages
Language

English
Publication date

July 30, 2019
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
See all details

Morgan Stang
857
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $0.99
Coyote JM Edwards
369
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $0.99
S.L. Rowland
1,010
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $4.99
Casey Blair
1,320
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $4.99
R.K. Ashwick
92
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.99
Marie Cardno
406
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.99

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07VXCLNST
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Soft Cryptid (July 30, 2019)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 30, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1787 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 118 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #158,051 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #119 in LGBTQ+ Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #439 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #670 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 535 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Meredith Katz

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Meredith Katz lives in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with her lovely wife and her sensitive poet cat. She is an author of lgbt+ romance, science fiction, and fantasy. Her first novel, Beauty and Cruelty, is the winner of the Rainbow Awards 2016 Best Debut Lesbian Book. She is a big fan of mixing the human and the other-than-human and seeing what comes out.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

535 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Elysa

Lovely story

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2023

Verified Purchase

"The Cybernetic Tea Shop" is the book equivalent to curling up in a warm blanket. If you liked the cozy fantasy "Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree, you'll want to pick this book up and vice versa.

Sal is a robot who runs a teashop, and Clara is a human who moves frequently from tech job to tech job. The two meet and form an incredibly sweet connection.

There's drama and danger but nothing too intense happens to the characters themselves. Sal does deal with anti-robot protestors, and we see her working through it emotionally.

It's a novella with a quick pace that I will likely revisit when I need a comfort read.

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2023

Verified Purchase

I never give a five but this is very good - a sensitive deeply felt, deeply original story about caring.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Lily Mordaunt

Cool Concept

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. I wasn’t expecting not to like it, but I alsodidn’t know what to expect. I’ve read sci-fi stories with advanced technology that can respond and sass their owners—like a Siri with a few more decades of tinkering—but not with the level of emotion Sal possessed. It was also really fascinating having her as one of the story’s narrators.
I thought the author did a great job of portraying her emotions while still keeping a sort of distance/keeping us aware of her nonhuman nature. She still felt and had a wide range of emotions, but she was also physically unable to cry, could charge and have parts repaired.
I also enjoyed Clara but I think I was far more fascinated by the characterization of Sal. I loved once they were together though I wish I’d seen more of them.
This is a short sweet novella that I’d definitely recommend. (Also, like, Clara, I also love tea and some of those blends sounded delicious.)

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Waites Family

Review from The Illustrated Page

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2018

Verified Purchase

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a light, refreshing read that manages to be sweet without becoming saccharine.

Sal is one of the few remaining sentient AIs, as their creation was banned centuries before. Sal’s passed the years with a steady routine, running an old fashioned tea shop for what’s been almost three hundred years. The tea shop belonged to a woman she loved, and she keeps the shop going as a sort of shrine to her.

Clara is a technician who specializes in the programming of non-sentient AI companions. She’s a restless sort of person who never likes to stay very long in any one place. When she comes to Seattle, she finds Sal’s tea shop, and she brings some unexpected change into Sal’s life.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a quick story; I read it in the span of an hour between two of my classes. It’s listed as a novella, but at only sixty-seven pages, I’m not sure if it would actually qualify as a novelette. Anyway, it’s a book I guarantee can be read in one day.

What drew me to The Cybernetic Tea Shop was the knowledge that Clara was asexual. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a f/f asexual romance, and The Cybernetic Tea Shop is one that kept popping up as a recommendation. The word is never used, but Clara describes herself such that it’s clear she is ace. Part of me wonders if there’s some sort of pattern in SFF stories with ace romances of the ace person falling in love with a ghost or a robot or someone else where sex isn’t really an option anyway. I don’t think it’s a fault of The Cybernetic Tea Shop, but it’s a pattern I think I’m going to keep my eye on.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a lovely, quiet science fiction story about grief and moving on with life. If that sounds like your cup of tea, than I suggest giving it a read.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

K Reviews

Short and Sweet - Sci-Fi F/F Asexual Romance

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a tiny sip of a story, weighing in at only 67 pages. It's as sweet and comforting as a cup of tea - which I encourage you to enjoy while you read it, for atmosphere.

Set a few hundred years in the future, our main character, Clara, is a programmer who fixes Fetches - little robotic creatures (with no AI) that assist humans. She also has a bit of wanderlust, never wanting to stay in one place long. In Clara's world, we developed AI robots, but then they were outlawed because of the issues surrounding creating and owning beings that became self-aware and were self-learning/teaching.

When Clara relocates to Seattle she finds a charming Tea Shop run by one of the few remaining true AI robots, Sal. Sal is scraping by with the tea shop, but she's slowly deteriorating without new parts readily available to maintain her. She's also the target of various acts of vandalism and crime because of her borderline legal status as not-quite-human. Clara and Sal's developing relationship is quite sweet.

The author's note describes this as a F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance which is all true, but leaves it to the reader to discover the charm of the story.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

mpeterke

This is perfect!

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2022

Verified Purchase

This was exactly what I needed right now. It reminded me of a Becky Chambers story, which is a good thing because she is one of my favorites. I thought that this cozy sci-fi story was kind of her special thing but it turns out that this is a whole new emerging sub-genre. I think I will be a fan. Read this! This is good!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

mirvoyager1

Heartwarming asexual love story

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2023

Verified Purchase

I liked it so much I want to eat it. I only wish it was longer. I would love to read more of Sal's story and see more of this future world with ethical AI concerns.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

E. Fernandez

Beautiful

Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

A well written and delightful story. A meditation of what life is about from the point of view of two original protagonists with asexual representation. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

A good solid scifi romance

Reviewed in Australia on June 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

Absolutely lovely and tied up very nicely at the end; although I've fallen in love with the characters so much I'm rather sad I'll never see them again (pointed winking at Ms. Katz).

Hannah Feiner

Fantastic novella

Reviewed in Canada on February 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is page-turning and intelligent. The shop itself feels real, as do the two women who inhabit it.

One person found this helpful

Kv

Personhood - who decides?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book might “only” be a novella but it packs so much in and leaves you with many thoughts swirling after you’ve finished reading.
Main thought… is Sal a person? What makes a person, a person? Thoughts, feelings, ability to alter and/or change, feel pain (not just physical but emotional), communicate and reason. She is all of those and you are left pondering that thought, long after finishing the book.
Other thoughts: Clara’s past relationships and her need to be constantly moving from place to place without ever really settling down.
Sal’s past (all 278 years of it!) and her relationship with Karinne.
Their future travels with Joanie – so many potential stories there :)
Loved Joanie – a funny and sarcastic lil sidekick who enhanced an already great story
This was a fab story which was very intriguing and thought provoking.
“Clara was right. She had always been a person to Karinne”

Courtney MM

It had wonderful characters (especially the main two

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

This was such a warm and refreshing story. It had wonderful characters (especially the main two, but Joanie and Hyeon were great supporting cast) and some interesting world-building that I would have liked to have seen more of, but really appreciated even as just a backdrop to the focus on the romance and individual character study. The contrast of Clara’s discomfort with staying put versus Sal’s dedication to remaining in the cafe to fulfill Karinne’s dream, for as many years as it would take, was really highlighted through the story’s themes of grief, loss and moving on: all portrayed very sensitively in a reflective and contemplative tone.

I loved the small details that highlight the variance in Clara’s and Sal’s respective sections and how those worked to establish their differing personalities, as well as their different situations. The transition between their parts of the book that focus on each of them was smooth and flowed despite this; the whole writing style was just lovely and perfectly suited to a story like this.

My only wish is that it had been longer: I would have loved to see more of the wonderful world-building and side characters (especially Hyeon, who had such a lovely friendship with Sal) and while the ending was perfect, I really would have loved to see a couple more scenes of interactions between Clara and Sal before then. But as much as I would love to see more from its world, The Cybernetic Teashop works its wonders just fine as an interlude of the character’s lives rather than being long and overarching.

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Author

The Cybernetic Tea Shop Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

Product details

Videos

About the author

Meredith Katz

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries