Book Review | All Systems Red by Martha Wells

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.

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For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #36: Has futuristic technology)
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

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The Reason

I’ve been seeing so many recommendations for the Murderbot Diaries everywhere, and always in conjunction with a few other books I’ve loved. Everyone who talks about it says how much they loved it, and it just got to a point where it seemed like everyone has read it except me. So I got on the bandwagon!

The Quotes

“I liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.”

“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.”

“You may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.”

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes.”

The Narrator

Kevin R. Free. He did a great job! No complaints there. My only issue with this being an audiobook is that I often don’t get the characters’ names, and/or location names, mission names, etc., but that’s a common issue with scifi and fantasy and made-up names. I heard the series was good on audio, so I’ll continue it on audio, but I might check out a print copy just to see the names written out.

The Characters

The Murderbot – I don’t think we ever find out its name, unless I missed it. But I love it! It may be a murderbot, but it’s one of the funniest, most relatable characters I’ve ever read about, and ironically, so humanly-flawed! I love it!

The other characters are interesting too, or rather, have the potential to be interesting. Their personalities are quite distinct, but we don’t find out a lot about them. Some readers have criticized this aspect of the book, saying that the characters fell flat, but to me, it seemed like a deliberate decision. We see the story through the Murderbot’s POV, and the Murderbot tells us repeatedly that it doesn’t care to know anything about the other characters. I thought it made perfect sense.

My Thoughts

I’ll be honest and say that half the time I had no idea what was going on in terms of plot. The beauty of this book is in the Murderbot’s thought processes, and again, the Murderbot admits it has no interest in information about the crew or their missions, or anything to do with why it’s there, and it certainly shows through how the story is told. I think that it’s just brilliantly written, how Martha Wells managed to write a story where we don’t get a lot of clear information, but we get to know the Murderbot, and how invested we can become in a story like that.

My Feels

I want more. I started the book knowing that it’s the first book in a series, and I think I might not like it as much if it stopped here because while I enjoyed getting to know the Murderbot, I feel like this book was just an introduction and I need to see its character develop and grow. So I’m looking forward to the next books!

My Rating

4/5 stars. I’m hooked, but I need more!

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?