July Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club: Ode to the Half-Broken

Schedule

Fri Jul 24 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Old Town Books | Alexandria, VA

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Join us for a discussion of our July Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club pick: Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
About this Event

Old Town Books' Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club is free and open to the public. While buying the book at OTB is not required to attend, we would greatly appreciate it to help keep our free literary programming sustainable! Buy your copy of Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer at the shop or online and note "book club" to get 10% off.

By attending any and all Old Town Books events you are agreeing to our code of conduct.

Old Town Books is committed to creating accessible events and spaces for the widest possible audience. Please reach out to us at [email protected] for reasonable accessibility accommodations.

About the book:

In the abandoned New York Botanical Gardens, forty years after the world nearly ended, a worn-out robot is attacked, and realizes old evils are stirring
Wrestling with themes of loneliness, connection, and purpose, this hope-punk sci-fi is for fans of Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology—featuring a cyborg dog!
Thirty years ago the world nearly ended.
Be was there, but the old robot has since settled into a life of isolation in the abandoned New York Botanical Gardens, determined to forget their role in that cataclysmic conflict.
But then they wake up in a bathtub. And their leg is missing. And the only one to ask for help is a very chatty cyborg dog. Be may want to forget the world, but it seems the world hasn’t forgotten them.
Forced out of solitude, Be embarks on a quest to reclaim their leg, accompanied by that talkative (read: smart-ass) dog and a human mechanic with nightmares of her own. Their motley crew soon discovers that recovery from the war is uneven and faltering, and Be begins to suspect a malicious hand trying to rekindle old conflicts. In order to stop them, Be needs to come to terms with both their own past and who they have become. Being left alone is no longer an option, and peace may be impossible.
A tale of resilience and hope, this is an ode to those struggling to become whole in a world half-broken.

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Where is it happening?

Old Town Books, 130 South Royal Street, Alexandria, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

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