Book Review: The Stargazer Gift Shop

Book cover: The Stargazer Gift Shop by Steve Soult

“Gentle” is the best way I can describe The Stargazer Gift Shop. The story is told from the perspective of Rhoda, a high-functioning, artificially intelligent robot with a heart of electrum who runs a gift shop on The Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy. What starts as a normal day quickly turns strange when a series of desperate patrons each come seeking her help. Rhoda soon finds herself making complex moral choices that she was never programmed to handle.

The writing style is warm and welcoming like a grandmother’s arms, and serves as a great glimpse of things to come in this new series by various science fiction authors.