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Valet

by J. P. Lacrampe

A family business, a helper robot, and an improvised escape

Regular price $23.70 USD
Regular price $39.50 USD Sale price $23.70 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A family business, a helper robot, and an improvised escape

When Grayson learns that his sister plans to sell their late father’s robotics company, he takes a flash drive containing his father’s work and sets an uncertain corporate takeover in motion. Cy, the helper robot assigned to get Grayson out of his funk, becomes his unlikely partner as complications multiply: another robot seeks help leaving its owner, a date keeps crossing their path, and a tech conglomerate presses to close the deal. The journey puts the family company—and the technology behind Cy—at the center of questions about inheritance, loyalty, and what makes a family. The novel pairs speculative robotics with a comic adventure built around an ill-prepared human and the machine trying to help him.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in speculative fiction featuring helper robots and robotics technology.
  • Readers who enjoy comic plots involving family businesses, corporate maneuvering, and an unlikely partnership.
  • Readers looking for a story that explores family, inheritance, and the boundaries of humanity.

Themes

Robotics and usefulnessFamily and inheritanceCorporate control of technologyHumanity and trust

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

For fans of Kevin Wilson and Andrew Sean Greer, a helper robot and his thirty-five-year-old ward embark on a madcap adventure to save the fate of the family company in this whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster.

Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score, and receive the next update for his operating system. But that's easier said than done when he's tasked with helping his owner's thirty-five-year-old son "get out of his funk." Grayson is nothing like his go-getter, CEO sister Charlotte. He didn't inherit the family robotics company when their dad passed last year, he doesn't have a master's degree, and he just can't seem to figure out the San Francisco dating scene. He'd rather eat synthesized mozzarella sticks and make pottery at his studio, Kilning Time.

When Grayson learns of Charlotte's plan to sell the company to a tech conglomerate, he panics. It's not just the family business at stake, it's all the technology--like Cy--their dad invented over the years. So he does what anyone would do: he steals the flash drive with his father's most important work stored on it and plans a corporate takeover. If only he knew what that meant.

To make matters worse, a fellow VALET deserts his owner and asks Cy to help him hightail it out of town, Grayson's first real date--and her dog--keeping showing up at inopportune times, and the behemoth tech company wants this deal closed yesterday. Grayson, Cy, and their trusty golden retriever, Sasha III, must go on the lam until they figure out exactly what to do, and whom to trust.

A hilarious, madcap adventure that is as tender as it is insightful, Valet asks not just what it means to be human, but what it means to be family.
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