Service Model

An odd, fun book.

Released in June 2024, it comes after the release of ChatGPT in late 2022. I have no reason to believe our current LLM era was on Tchaikovsky’s mind when he wrote it. However the parallel now seems extremely on the mark.

I loved the depiction of the aging machines buckling slightly under the weight of contradictory advice from humans. As I dig through my AGENTS.md and skills, I’m reminded of just how much I can screw these systems up with throwaway remarks. The fact they’ll often find a way through, only serves to neatly hide the contradictions burning tokens.

The book itself felt oddly like a videogame for me. It pulls back its own curtain a few times, and I found myself with a reoccurring feeling of having been thrown into a “big town”. Curious about what’s beyond the walls of its starting manor, but then a bit startled at every expansion to the point of feeling a bit lost.

I think some of that might be pacing. It ends up appearing as a collection of scenes, each one tightly realised but somewhat loosely strung together.

It is difficult to get a sense of where this is all going at times, and the expansion in its scope can take you to the brink of a resolution, only to veer off on some greater goal.

The scenes themselves are brilliant though. From literary knights that appear to be acting out a Jen Pahlka inspired tragedy, to swarmingly feral armies, weary remnants of the remains of The Remains of the Day to logically locked bureaucrats.

It was fun and had vignettes that’ll stick with me, I’m just not sure it hung together as well as some of Tchaikovsky’s other books.