A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.In a corporate-dominated spacefaring 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 … 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.” Scornful of humans, all it really 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 their Murderbot to get to the truth.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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If I could give this 10 stars, I would. A great story!
The Murderbot Diaries won both Hugo and Nebula, and with good reason.
*** What to Expect
A novella told from the point of view of an android assigned as a security unit to a team of scientists exploring a new planet. action is packed in this very short novel (or lengthy novella), but more importantly there’s an impressive character arc.
*** What I liked
Excellent story and world-building in such a short scope, with Wells doing an amazing job of depicting the point-of-view of the robot and humans around it.
*** What to be aware of
There isn’t a lot that would put SciFi fans off this work. It’s short, but so were a lot of the early masterpieces. This work definitely deserves all the accolades it won.
*** Summary
Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys character-driven science-fiction stories.
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Assaph Mehr, author of Murder In Absentia: A Story of Togas, Daggers, and Magic – for lovers of Ancient Rome, Murder Mysteries, and Urban Fantasy.
All Systems Red is the story of MurderBot, a corporate security android (SecUnit), tasked with taking care of a group of human scientists who are exploring a distant planet. When another group of scientists on the planet do not respond to communications, MurderBot (a self-given name) goes out with his scientists to investigate. They discover that the other scientists have all been murdered, apparently by rogue androids. MurderBot’s scientists realize that they are next to come under attack. They flee. It’s up to MurderBot to make sure that they stay safe until they can escape the planet.
This is a fascinating look at a creature that is both human and not human. He (he? she? it?) feels distinctly uncomfortable interacting directly with his charges and yet refers to them possessively as “my humans.” He’d much rather be watching thousands of hours of downloaded soap operas. Yet he’s determined to protect them from murderous androids that are under the control of competing corporate interests.
The lethal intentions of competing corporations are not so much of a surprise. What is a surprise is the superb way in which author Martha Wells draws the personality and character of an android with thoughts and emotions of his own, and yet still under the control of humans. Or is he? In a time in which artificial intelligence gains significance, Wells give us a superb fictional opportunity to think about androids and how we might be dealing with them in the future. Great storytelling!
love love love her murder bot books
I love Murderbot!
There are a lot of stories about robots/androids/cyborgs who present as having human emotion. These usually depict the robot as being babyishly innocent yet deadly or homicidally vicious. This is the first with a robot who is depicted as deciding humanity is too weird to want to interact with. That makes this robot charater rivetingly attention getting. I just have to see what he manages to fall into while trying to avoid dealing with his overly hapless employers.
This novella is told from the perspective of MurderBot, a security unit assigned to a group of scientists who are surveying an unnamed planet in an unknown part of the galaxy. MurderBot is self-aware, addicted to entertainment feeds, doesn’t care to interact with the humans it supposed to be protecting, and has hacked its governor and turned it off. On the planet, things begin going wrong when another surveying team on the other side of the planet suddenly goes silent. When the humans decide to go investigate, MurderBot has a bad feeling about what they’ll find. It turns out its right to have had misgivings.
This is a stunning short novel. From page one, the author grabs her readers and doesn’t let go until the last page. The action is non-stop and like MurderBot, the reader doesn’t know what is coming next. As the book progresses, MurderBot discovers it kind of likes its humans. And vice versa. Readers will find themselves rooting for MurderBot to survive the perfidy of other humans. The story line is so well told that readers will lose track of time.
If you think you don’t like SciFi, this book will change your mind. If you do like SciFi, this book (and the other three books in the series already published), deserves to be at the top of your to-be-read list.
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My thanks to Tor for an eARC.
I really didn’t know what to expect and so enjoyed it more. So I’ll not tell you much except: READ IT. It’s only a novella and you’ll whip through it quickly and be left wanting more!
I’ve been excited to read this series as many people I know enjoyed it and recommended it to me. And now I know why.
A team of scientists, along with their required android, or SecUnit as it’s called, are conducting survey tests on a remote planet. Should be easy. But when another team is massacred, they realize they’re next and they aren’t prepared.
Murderbot is what it calls itself. And when you learn it’s history, the name is apt. It was easy to like Muderbot. It’s got a lot of human qualities, like sarcasm, introspection and wanting to know who it is. I was curious too. It’s not a sexbot, so no sexual organs, I was curious about what face it wore under the armor. Did it look like a man or a woman? I was left wondering and hope future stories reveal that to me. And it’s very human in another way, spending hours watching the future’s version of a Netflix show. I’d binge this series if Netflix offered it. Don’t let this fool you about the SecUnit. It’s not a combat model, but when required, it goes at it’s enemy no hold’s barred, risking injury to inflict the most damage.
What made this read real for me was that it’s always assumed that with the advanced technology that enables us to travel in space, we come to expect it to “look” advanced. For the ships and all the other things that come with it to be like shiny new toys and everything works right. Not so here. It’s the same as always, cheaper is better and cutting corners is always the first choice. Which causes quite a few problems for the crew and for Murderbot.
I had so much fun with All Systems Red and am already reading the next book. The ending here left me so curious. What does the future hold for Muderbot?
A self-aware SecUnit (construct made with organic and inorganic parts) working with a team of scientist on a planetary mission, who calls itself Murderbot, has hacked the part that controls it, so it is totally able to ignore commands and act on its own. Mostly what it wants to do is watch entertainment media and do the minimum work it needs to do to get by. Then its humans are attacked, first by some deadly fauna living on the planet, and then by persons unknown. It likes these humans and wants to help them, although it feels uncomfortable with the way they try to treat it like one of them. This was a thoroughly entertaining and engaging story, I loved Murderbot and its inner thoughts and feelings, while it tries to figure out just who and what it wants to be. I’m really looking forward to reading the further adventures of this interesting being.
My favorite new sci fi
After driving home from an hour commute, I proceeded to sit in my car for much longer because I just could not stop listening to this book. It was a fun read with an interesting and engaging main character. I love Murderbot and, by the way, I finished every novella published by this author in 48 hours. I can’t wait for the next one!
Everything I look for in a book.
Different, quirky, what a terrific read.
It is and is not like other books about robots and future world story-lines. It doesn’t start off at the beginning or it doesn’t make it feel like the beginning. You feel like you were dropped in the middle of the beginning of the next book. So you always feel like your playing catch up, until your not. Then your left feeling like you missed an important part somewhere.??
That’s what makes it different. It manages to suck you in despite all that instead of dropping you flat. And eventually, things do start to make sense, you just got to keep reading.
This was the best book I’ve read in years. Seriously. It was sooo much fun. Murderbot is the most relatable and marvelous character. The world is cool, the situations it faces exciting, and the snark, oh, the snark. Murderbot does great sarcasm. I’ve read the whole series of novellas at this point and am eagerly awaiting the novel to come. This is destined to be a classic.
Murderbot is a riot!
It takes a really great book to turn off my internal editor anymore. ALL SYSTEMS RED switched my internal editor into the OFF position and my super-fan into the ON position within a couple pages. Completely wonderful approach to the sentience of AIs and robots and how they might ‘feel’ about the robotic jobs we give them to do, but packed with tons of adventure. Can’t wait to read the next!
I have been trying to find an incredible, character-based SciFi series with enough action and exploration to hold my attention for months to no avail. It wasn’t until I ran across several recommendation articles all singing praises for All Systems Red that I decided to give it a go. Since the first book is a novella and only $4 on Amazon – less than a latte from Starbucks – I figured it count hurt to at least try it.
I went in fully expecting to try a few chapters (I unusually give a book three chapters/~100 pages to win me over before I add it to the DNF pile), find myself either…
1 – bored with the characters. Or the plot. Or both
2 – experiencing an information overload as the author tries to stuff 100s/1000s years of human/tech advancement/AI history into my head in the shortest amount of World Building Possible
3 – just plain confused
… as I have for all the other sci fi series I’ve tried recently. At which point I would heave another huge disappointed sigh and carry on with my quest for engaging SciFi that does not make my head hurt.
Luckily for me and my long suffering brain, none of that happened. Murderbot’s character and personally hooked me right from the get go, like a more cynical and less polite version of JARVIS (who is my absolute favorite Marvel character and I am still insanely bitter about Ultron), with a dash of Andromeda (from Gene Roddenberry’s less well known Andromeda series) and Marvin (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) to keep the character fresh and uniquely its own.
The novella also isn’t bogged down with an excess of world building or a crash course in the last however many years of human and mechanical evolution – you’re dropped into some future time on a distant planet with a group of surveyors and boom, that’s it. The most complicated part is trying to determine the difference between the various systems Murderbot mentions access to and keeping the names of all the surveyors straight, which is by no means an insurmountable task.
I didn’t enjoy it much. I did not believe the central character, a self-aware protection drone, or the situations it found itself in. So… I’ve given a miss to the author’s other work as well.