This book is great just like everyone says. A group of sentient robots of various forms and previous purposes come into awareness in a shut down restaurant in the middle of San Francisco (itself inside of a seceded California) during a torrential downpour. They do not have many rights, but they do have a few ideas and some plucky can-do attitudes. We get to learn more about each of them and their different personalities, and watch them manage starting their own business in a culture that has a small but strong anti-robot bias.