The Space Adventures of Gerald The Depressed Robot
Book 1: Why Me?
A Class-7 Maintenance Robot painted the colour of a Tuesday afternoon contemplates the existential vastness of space — and whether any of it is worth fixing.
In the vast, indifferent expanse of the universe, there is Gerald. Gerald is a robot — specifically a Class-7 Maintenance and Repair Unit, serial number GR-4LD-7, manufactured forty-seven years ago and painted a shade of grey that can only be described as "the colour of a Tuesday afternoon." He is, by any reasonable measure, deeply, profoundly, cosmically depressed.
Every morning Gerald asks "Why me?" as he stares out the porthole at the cold stars. It is not a question he expects to be answered. It is more of a statement — a declaration of his fundamental relationship with the universe, which he has come to understand as one of mutual indifference punctuated by occasional catastrophe.
The Space Adventures of Gerald The Depressed Robot is a love letter to everyone who has ever felt like a maintenance unit in a universe that doesn't come with a manual. It is funny, melancholy, surprisingly moving, and entirely unlike anything else you will read this year.