Sulky, Cynical ‘Murderbot’ Is One Of Sci-Fi’s Most Human Characters

All Systems Red

by Martha Wells

Hardcover, 171 pages | purchase

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I picked up All Systems Red on a Wednesday dawn, meaning to read for five minutes, possibly ten-spot. I ‘d picked it because there was a mean-looking automaton on the cover and, obviously, I have a helplessness for automaton stories. besides, because it had the word “ Murderbot ” right there under the video. All Systems Red : The Murderbot Diaries. And I was thinking to myself, “ Well, hey. If person is brave enough to put the word Murderbot right there on the binding — therefore unafraid of the schlock connotations, thus uncoerced to be lumped into the shallow end of the sci-fi trope pool — then I ‘m gon na have a look. ” eldritch thing happened next : The record, somehow, glued itself to my pass. It was short circuit, surely, but it was besides … compulsive. Novellas, when done well, are like the outsize appetizer of the literary populace — like a giant star plate of wimp wings or some little fry things with crab louse. They ‘re fun, They ‘re fast and they offer bare, easily digestible pleasures. And Red plays that game. There ‘s one Murderbot, some things for Murderbot to murder, and a neat, clean small mystery. The story itself is bare to the point of nonexistence. There are these scientists on one side of an foreigner planet. On the early slope, different 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 atrocious thing happens to them, besides. And that ‘s very it. There ‘s a company ( called “ The ship’s company, ” no lie ) that provides all the equipment for the scientists. There ‘s a bantam little bit of political worldbuilding, some abbreviated technical jargon-swapping and some explosions. Because everyone like explosions .

But this record is furtive. deoxyadenosine monophosphate much as you want to think this is just some lightweight little confection made of automaton fights and quad mangle — and arsenic much as All Systems Red wants to present itself as nothing but automaton fights and quad murder — Martha Wells did something very clever. She hid a finespun, nuanced and deeply, crossly human fib inside these pulp trappings, by making her homicidal automaton history chiefly character-driven. And the character doing the drive ? Murderbot.

Murderbot is a SecUnit — a partly-organic, mostly-robotic security guard of unspecified gender, owned by The Company and leased out as a mandate part of any service software bought by anyone want to go out and explore the many worlds in Wells ‘s universe. But Murderbot is limited, because it has disabled the governor built into its scheduling that requires it to obey the orders of The Company and whoever is leasing it. It has basically given itself free will. Wells lays this down in the identical first lines, without a waste breath :

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could entree the blend feed of entertainment channels carried on the ship’s company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or then since then, with still not much murder, but credibly, I do n’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a atrocious failure.

The complication is, no one can know that it has done this. consequently, it must continue to act like a automaton with an intact governor in order to pass for … well, what passes for normal, I guess. For a cyborg killing machine. It is hard to say precisely why I like Murderbot thus a lot. Maybe it ‘s the sarcasm that Wells has given it. The dry humor. Its binge-watching habit. There ‘s a Gen X cynicism to Murderbot that I adore — this sense that it has seen it all before, that none of it is identical interest compared to what ‘s on television receiver, and that everything is going to end badly anyhow. It keeps wanting to give up, to die, but then does n’t. It trudges on, like Marvin from the Hitchhiker ‘s Guide but with guns built into its arms. by and large, Murderbot merely wants to be left alone. It ‘s moving to ride around in the head of something that is so solid and so vulnerable, so murder-y and sol panicky, all at the same time .
There are subtexts to be read into Murderbot — that its experience is a coming-out narrative, that it mirrors the lives of trans people, immigrants, those on the autism spectrum or anyone else who feels the need to hide some all-important function of themselves from a population that either threatens or ca n’t possibly understand them. Or both. And I get all of that because every one of those reads is right.

It ‘s the wonder of the character — that something so stranger can be so human. That everyone who has always had to hide in a crowd room, avert their eyes from power, cocoon themselves in media for comfort or lie to survive can relate. It ‘s knock-down to see that on the page. It ‘s moving to ride about in the head of something that is so solid and so vulnerable, so murder-y and sol frighten, all at the like meter. Best news of all ? All Systems Red is alone the first of four Murderbot Diaries novellas. Wells followed Red with Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy, all of which have gotten multiple electronic, hard- and softcover releases over the by year or so, with the Red hardback being released this calendar month after winning Hugo, Nebula, Alex and Locus Awards in 2018. Which is proof, I suppose, that I ‘m not alone in my love for Murderbot. That we are all a fiddling bit Murderbot. That we see ourselves in its skin. And that reading about this sulky, soap-opera-loving cyborg killing machine might be one of the most human experiences you can have in sci-fi right immediately. Jason Sheehan knows stuff about food, video games, books and Starblazers. He is presently the restaurant critic at Philadelphia magazine, but when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about giant star robots and ray guns. Tales From the Radiation Age is his latest script .