It's moving to ride around in the head of something that is so strong and so vulnerable, so murder-y and so frightened, all at the same time. Wells lays this down in the very first lines, without a wasted breath: It has essentially given itself free will. But Murderbot is special, because it has disabled the governor built into its programming that requires it to obey the orders of The Company and whoever is leasing it. Murderbot is a SecUnit - a partly-organic, mostly-robotic security guard of unspecified gender, owned by The Company and leased out as a mandatory part of any service package bought by anyone wanting to go out and explore the many worlds in Wells's universe. She hid a delicate, nuanced and deeply, grumpily human story inside these pulp trappings, by making her murderous robot story primarily character-driven. As much as you want to think this is just some lightweight little confection made of robot fights and space murder - and as much as All Systems Red wants to present itself as nothing but robot fights and space murder - Martha Wells did something really clever. Because everyone likes explosions.īook Reviews Futuristic Dreams Turn To Nightmare In 'Electric State'īut this book is sneaky. There's a tiny little bit of political worldbuilding, some brief technical jargon-swapping and some explosions. There's a company (called 'The Company,' no lie) that provides all the equipment for the scientists. Something goes terribly wrong for the second group, and it is up to the first (plus Murderbot) to figure out what happened before the terrible thing happens to them, too. There are these scientists on one side of an alien planet. The story itself is simple to the point of nonexistence. There's one Murderbot, some things for Murderbot to murder, and a neat, clean little mystery. They're fun, They're fast and they offer simple, easily digestible pleasures.Īnd Red plays that game. Novellas, when done well, are like the oversized appetizer of the literary world - like a giant plate of chicken wings or some little fried things with crab. Weird thing happened next: The book, somehow, glued itself to my hand. If someone is brave enough to put the word Murderbot right there on the cover - so unafraid of the schlock connotations, so willing to be lumped into the shallow end of the sci-fi trope pool - then I'm gonna have a look.' And I was thinking to myself, 'Well, hey.

Also, because it had the word 'Murderbot' right there under the picture. I'd picked it because there was a mean-looking robot on the cover and, obviously, I have a weakness for robot stories. I picked up All Systems Red on a Wednesday morning, meaning to read for five minutes, maybe ten.

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