All Systems Red

I fell in love with Murderbot in the first paragraph. Every book afterward in the series just made me love it more.

The hero of the Murderbot Diaries is part robot, part humanoid, and all done-with-everyone’s-crap. Everyone seemed to think that if a construct like it gained its freedom, it would rampage around killing everyone. Instead, it just wanted to be left alone to watch some good shows, and read a book or ten. Been there.

I cracked up at the sarcasm, got pulled in by the action, and felt the compassion that drove Murderbot to jump into the mouth… show more.

This book made me laugh out loud, not once but many, many times. I like science fiction, but it's not the main genre I read. This book was recommended to me as a mystery/sci-fi mix, so I gave it a try. And hooray! It's part of a series, so there were more with these characters if I liked them.

I didn't like them. I loved them! It's got a human/robot construct who becomes self-aware and who calls him/it/self MurderBot because it thinks about ways to murder humans. But it doesn't. That's all I'm going to say right there because otherwise,… show more.

If you like science fiction and haven’t read the Murderbot books, well, you should go do that. Like right now.

They’re a delight: clever and funny and full of action. The main appeal is Murderbot, the snarky, anti-social, security cyborg who would rather shoot things than admit to having an emotion.

For purposes of this list, the book is full of interstellar corporate states vying for power, committing violence, spying on outsiders and their own people, and turning people like Murderbot into tools. There are aspiring utopian societies here, too, which value things like privacy and rights. That leads to… show more.

I found the protagonist, a security android named Murderbot, humorous and captivating.

Murderbot pretends not to care for the humans it’s contracted to protect, but it can’t help itself. After the first book, I became an invested reader in this award-winning series, thoroughly entertained by Murderbot finding more inventive ways to defend its human clients from dangerous situations.

In its struggles to interact with humans in a socially acceptable manner, Murderbot also tries to understand more of who it is. 

Because I am writing more science fiction, I am reading more. This book was a revelation in pushing genre boundaries, and the suspense is exquisite.

It’s actually a simple tale of planetary exploration and the dangers faced by the crew. What makes it stand out is the robot that is tasked to protect them. A sarcastic robot who has disabled its governor, who has a difficult time talking to humans face-to-face, and is sometimes more human than the humans around it. It’s made itself “free” so it can binge-watch what are essentially T.V. shows while appearing to work. But when… show more.

I usually point readers to authors who are less well known, but I’ll make a slight exception for Martha Wells (famous in the Fantasy genre but less so in sci-fi).

All Systems Red, her sci-fi novella about a non-conformist android is simply a whole lot of fun. Just read the first paragraph, what authors call “the hook”. In three sentences, Martha will pull you into the personal story of Sec Unit (aka murderbot).

This murderbot might be a heartless killing machine but now that her governor module has been disabled, she has a new sense of fairness. Plus, she’s discovered… show more.

This book was enchanting. I have a thing for personified robots with quirky personalities.

We follow a robot who was formerly a murderbot, as he frees himself from his depressing job, and develops a sentience that is both hilarious and heartwarming. And the bonus is that it’s a novella, and a very quick read.

In All Systems Red, the protagonist (aka Murderbot or SecUnit), is a “construct,” a combination of both organic and robotic parts, like a cyborg.

It (it goes by “it”), and while it doesn’t self-identify as neurodiverse, so many of its traits and eccentricities—it rewatches favorite media sort of obsessively, struggles with eye contact and social anxiety, and often feels misunderstood—will resonate with neurodiverse folks and the people that love us.

SecUnit complains about humans a lot, but clearly cares deeply for others, and Wells’ characterization brings into focus the ways in which a person might present doesn’t always accurately… show more.

Murderbot is a cyborg security unit, or SecUnit, that has secretly hacked the internal governor module that allows humans to control it. Despite wanting to do nothing but watch soap operas, it needs to keep its current clients alive, so as not to give itself away, losing what little hard-won autonomy it has. The problem is, Murderbot once malfunctioned and killed 57 people, and because of gaps in its data memory, doesn’t understand why. It’s also at risk of being counterhacked and put under hostile control, endangering the survey team it’s protecting. In Murderbot, Wells has created one of the… show more.

I read this novella in one long insomniac night, snorting with laughter so much that I eventually had to leave the bedroom to keep from waking up my husband. A murderous bot overrides its programming so it doesn’t have to do quite so much murdering and instead can sneak off to watch television shows. But pesky humans keep pressing it into service to keep them from killing themselves and each other. It’s science fiction and crime fiction and a wry study of the human condition all rolled up together.

Murderbot is cynical, funny, and surprisingly heartwarming. We all have inner… show more.