Title: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1)
Author: Martha Wells
Genre: Science fiction
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Publication Date: December 2017
Format: Audiobook
Length: 3 hours

Read if you like: futuristic societies, questions of robots ethics, critiques of capitalism, witty humour, diverse cast, themes of identity and freedom

Rating: 

I was first introduced to Martha Wells through my Illumicrate subscription, which featured her book, Witch King. I found it to be extremely dense fantasy, but the humour and world-building were so immaculate that she’d piqued my interest. A few people recommended picking up her Murderbot Diaries series of novellas and now, it’s my newest obsession.

All Systems Red is a wildly clever, extremely well-executed science fiction novella about a lazy, apathetic sentient android. The premise was unique and engaging but Well’s writing and her ability to have me laughing out loud and then pondering the ethics of robot usage and corporate greed were what made the story so memorable. I was thoroughly entertained and enjoying myself for every single second of the audiobook and immediately regretted not having the second book already on hold at my library.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I liked this book and how promising I felt the premise was for the series to come. I can’t wait to get my hands on book two to see where Murderbot goes next. 

The Book Synopsis: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid–a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

The Review

This was a ridiculously fun book. 

First off, I loved the whole concept. The idea of an apathetic, soap opera-watching sentient android whose job is technically security but has overridden his protocols mostly out of a desire to be lazy sets up a promising premise from the very beginning. The potential is fulfilled as you watch Murderbot’s forced interactions with his human team, and where their adventures take them. 

The researchers he’s protecting are generally good people it seems. Some are less concerned with Murderbot’s general well-being, but only until it becomes more apparent that their existence is more complicated than that of a simple robot. Once they begin to work out that the android has unique feelings and thoughts, they become much more disconcerted by the relative slavery Murderbot is connected to them through, much to the entertaining ire of Murderbot who just wants to be left alone to watch TV.

The mystery of who is sabotaging the research mission is not overly complicated, nor is the world-building, leaving both to serve as the perfect foundation for the more philosophical pondering of Murderbot and his compatriots: is it okay to have this murder machine if it thinks and feels the way that you do? Does Murderbot have aspirations beyond, well… murder? What might Murderbot do if they weren’t indemnified to the corporation, and have they not already demonstrated through the hacking of their systems what they’d do given the chance? I think the last piece here is what I found most entertaining because, as it turns out, what Murderbot would do with freedom from corporation orders is similar to most human impulses: they’d binge-watch soap operas and generally avoid people in favour of lazy existence. 

This is at least the case until Murderbot is faced with being freed from the corporation, but not actually being “freed” in the truest sense of the word. It’s the end, where you see even the most well-intentioned of humans that he’s encountered can’t quite come to let them walk away and live their life that you get to do the best reflection. From Murderbot’s perspective, at best, it’s a transfer of ownership to a more favourable master, and it’s fascinating watching Wells explore what that means to the android that generally doesn’t care about much but finds themselves in a position to perhaps choose their own destiny. 

I loved the novella-length format of this book, and the audio version was fantastic. I’ve already got book two for this series on hold from my library and I can’t wait to continue it, this was easily one of the most fun science fiction pieces I’ve read in a long time.