All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries, #1)

by Martha Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or lain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. In a corporate dominated s pa cef a ring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company supplied security androids, for their own safety. 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 are 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.1 Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighbouring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

• ISBN10: 0765397536
• ISBN13: 9780765397539
• Publish Date: 2 May 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 160
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

Ugh, spent an hour on this review and it deleted it all.

What I'll say quickly is that I thought this fits far more into the YA category, with its tone, narrator, and themes. I found it a bit clumsy, and it had no variation in pacing. It's not for me, and I won't read on, but for those who are looking for fast-paced sci-fi that perhaps bridges YA and adult, this would be a good one to try.

[brdsk]

3.5/5

An engaging and light read that was quick and full of humour. Framed in a classic adventure scenario is a complex face of artificial intelligence that is shy and nerdy but with a streak of rebellion. It is easy to fall prey to affection for the main character, making the ride especially fun. A backdrop of morality and ethics questions is subtle and creates a scene reminiscent of broken hero origin stories, exactly we missed all the really bad parts and only hear of them in passing.


If you are looking for a read combining pulpy sci-fi with easy humour, jump right on. I will certainly be reading the next books.

What will happen next on Barsoom?

[teachergorman]

This was a kick. It was well written and highly creative. Excited for the next!

[celinenyx]

Delightful.

[kiracanread]

I personally didn't see the appeal of Murderbot like many others do, I'm curious to continue with this series to see if I have more positive thoughts about it, but for me it was just average.

[remo]

Fantástica novela corta sobre un robot de seguridad que decide hackear su módulo de gobierno y se convierte en un ser independiente. Como él mismo dice al principio del libro,

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.

A partir de ahí, solo pasan cosas entretenidas. Nos encariñamos rápidamente con el protagonista y observamos cómo razona y cómo resuelve situaciones y cómo se engancha a las telenovelas y cómo rehúye a los humanos con los que trabaja (es un bot ofrecido por su compañía como parte de un contratro de exploración).
Al final estamos ante una novela corta de aventuras espaciales, que me ha encantado. Hay cuatro entregas de la serie y la autora trabaja en la quinta para 2020. Muy entretenida. Un úinico fallo, no literario: las cuatro novelas cortas forman una novela larga, pero han decidido venderlas por separado y a precio de novela entera cada una de las cuatro.
--actualización-->
Le he dado una segunda lectura para llegar con todo fresco a la quinta entrega de la serie, y la he disfrutado igual que la primera. Tiene ese estilo (lleno de paréntesis (e incluso paréntesis dentro de paréntesis)) con el que el robot narra que me encanta. Frases del libro que he sacado porque me gustan (posibles mild spoilers):

Chapter One
Before she accepted delivery of me, she had logged about ten protests, trying to get out of having to have me. I didn’t hold it against her. I wouldn’t have wanted me either.

Chapter Two
Part of it is, they didn’t want me here. Not here in their hub, but here on the planet. One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half- assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Chapter Three
I thought it was likely that the only supplies we would need for DeltFall was the postmortem kind, but you may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.

Chapter Four
Mensah gave everybody watch shifts, including me. This was new, but not unwelcome, as it meant I had blocks of time where I wasn’t supposed to be paying attention and didn’t have to fake it.

She tapped back an acknowledgment on the feed, and I heard her telling the others to get off my feed and my comm, that she was going to be the only one speaking to me so I wasn’t distracted. Mensah underestimated my ability to ignore humans but I appreciated the thought. Ratthi whispered, “Be careful,” and signed off.

I found their first SecUnit. It was sprawled on its back on the floor, the armor over its chest pierced by something that made a hole approximately ten centimeters wide and a little deeper. We’re hard to kill, but that’ll do it.


Because you can’t walk up to another murderbot with an armor- piercing projectile or energy weapon inside the habitat and not be looked at with suspicion.

Chapter Six
It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

I hate having emotions about reality; I’d much rather have them about Sanctuary Moon [una telenovela].

Chapter Eight.
around, a hundred different public feeds brushing my awareness.

[leahrosereads]

I know I only finished the first of these, but I get why readers love them! This was an incredible story, thrilling and so very human (even though we're seeing everything through the eyes of something that's not totally human).

I'm going directly into book 2 and cannot wait to see where this story goes next and how Murderbot continues to evolve!

[lovelybookshelf]

I liked this better second time around (and this time as an audiobook). Enough to continue the series.

[smartflutist661]

I'm a bit jealous of Murderbot's life. The view of an alien planet from a (supposedly) apathetic part-machine, part-biologic construct who tries not to care about the people forced into its care is a rare take on space exploration. Excited to see how it fares being a free agent.

[ross91]

Fun and enjoyable, but I wasn't that hooked, so I don't think I'm going to read the next books in the series.