Wolfmoor (So You Want to Be a Robot) offers a sanguine second collection featuring an admirable variety of queer and neurodiverse human and robot characters who thrive amid adversity. These 12 speculative shorts circle the theme of forging perspective-changing friendships in unlikely places, among them an abandoned Mars settlement in “This Cold Red Dust,” the ocean depths in “Behold the Deep Never Seen,” within a time loop in “The Machine Is Experiencing Uncertainty,” and in uncharted deep space in “The Frequency of Compassion.” Three stories—“it me, ur smol,” “Housebot After the Uprising,” and “Steadyboi After the Apocalypse”—are told from the perspective of robots (an artificial neural network tweetbot, a household assistant, and a weaponized war robot, respectively) who become fond of humanity. Both “Bring the Bones That Sing” and “HEXPOCOLYPSE” delve into fantasy, centering young protagonists on magical adventures. The comic “The Loincloth and the Broadsword” features a barbarian struggling to embrace his passions, while “Lonely Robot on a Rocket Ship in Space” features a teenage human determined to become a robot. The consistent themes make for a cohesive whole, while Wolfmoor’s narrators and prose styles differ enough to keep readers’ interest piqued. The result is a charming outing that uses speculative elements to illustrate a message of kindness and tolerance. (Publishers Weekly)