This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Ode to the Half-Broken was released on May 26, 2026.
While Suzanne Palmer’s acclaimed Bot 9 stories fell into the liked-not-loved category for me, she’s written enough excellent stories for me to be intrigued by a new release. And the promise of a half-broken bot seeking meaning after an apocalypse was plenty sufficient for me to give Ode to the Half-Broken a try.
Ode to the Half-Broken takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape rife with suspicion between humans and bots. Some of the former blame the latter for the calamities that had befallen the world and work tirelessly to eliminate the threat. Which naturally leads to some distrust among the mechanical, even as many bots work to repair the fractured ecosystem. But others seem to be working toward more nefarious ends, and when the lead finds itself coming online in a bathtub sans leg, it and a cyborg canine companion embark on a journey that starts seeking repair and ends with goals that are much, much bigger.
Given the pitch and the Becky Chambers comps, I expected a plot-light story with a tight character focus. Instead, while there are indeed plenty of friends made along the way, the book as a whole does drive toward a major confrontation with a big bad. Like many post-apocalyptic works, there are times where it feels like a road trip tale, but the plot-to-character balance is closer to Palmer’s Bot 9 stories than it is to the handful of books I’ve read by Chambers.
That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, it’s just a thing, although I personally tend to prefer a balance a hair farther toward the character side. But there’s undoubtedly still plenty of exploration of the principal figures. The lead had been created as a weapon and must reckon with its own dismal assessment of its former life. Meanwhile, its traveling companion exists in its current form only due to a series of highly illegal and painful experiments. And every new setting provides more and more reminders of things they’d like to forget—there’s no blithely sidelining one’s own trauma in order to save the world.
The world-saving plot follows a familiar structure of “go to a new place, face a new danger, discover a new piece of the puzzle,” with flashback segments from alternate perspectives giving the reader more insight into the larger context. This sort of plot structure doesn’t especially appeal to me in general, but the individual episodes are good enough to keep engagement high. Even if the main plot expands to a pretty large scale, there are a lot of little stops along the way that force the lead into small decisions that may better the lives of minor characters—mostly bots, occasionally humans—that would otherwise play little role in the broader story. It’s these little encounters that form the real emotional backbone of the story and keep me coming back for more. The flashbacks are unexceptional, the world-saving is fine, but the story shines in the small-scale moments.
Ultimately, while Ode to the Half-Broken is paced more slowly and digs a lot deeper into the traumas of society falling apart, I suspect this novel will appeal greatly to those fans of Palmer’s Bot 9 stories. There’s a similar plot/character balance, with engaging bot characters, a satisfying larger plot, and a focus on the figures so often sidelined in grand science fiction narratives. It’s a good one.
Recommended if you like: post-apocalyptic road trips, hopepunk, bot stories.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s Published in 2026 and features Politics and a Nonhuman Protagonist.
Overall rating: 15 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.