All Systems Red

All Systems Red (2017) Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries)

Let me remind y’all: I generally don’t like science fiction.

I just don’t.

But everyone who has similar tastes to me has recommended this book so highly–and recommended it as a comfort read–I decided to see what I thought. After all, it’s a novella, not a huge undertaking.

Y’all, read it almost in one sitting.

I COULD HAVE BECOME a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

That is murderbot.

Murderbot does their job, even though they don’t have to, and even though the company that owns them doesn’t put that much effort into all parts of Murderbot.

I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that something else? They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions.

This is a science fiction murder mystery with a super snarky android who is trying to hide that they are super snarky and operating in a way they really are not supposed to.

At least Mensah and Arada had overruled the ones who wanted to talk to me about it. Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. I’d rather climb back into Hostile One’s mouth.

Oh, the other thing this story does is force you to think about what is–and is not–life, and what deserves full rights and what is property. Except it’s so full of snark you don’t realize you’re contemplating all these things.

As I said, it’s marvelous.

Publisher : Tor
Rating: 9/10

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