Paperback, 152 pages
English language
Published May 2015 by Tor.
All Systems Red is a 2017 science fiction novella by American author Martha Wells. The first in a series called The Murderbot Diaries, it was published by Tor.com. The series is about an artificial construct designed as a Security Unit, which manages to override its governor unit, thus enabling it to develop independence. It calls itself Murderbot, and likes to watch unrealistic soap operas. As it spends more time with some caring humans, it starts developing feelings that it does not care for.
I liked this, but it was also weirdly hard to pay attention to? Could be that no matter how I try, I’ll never be much for sci-fi. I think I’ll check out the other books in the series eventually, probably when there aren’t 8 billion holds on everything. I liked the snark and the world building enough to keep going, but I wanna revert to some non-sci-fi for a bit.
I read this a couple weeks ago and could tell you approximately nothing about the plot! I remember having a nice time reading it? It's short, which is to its credit. There is some stuff about untrustworthy corporations, and the main character is a robot whose robot-ness seems to be a metaphor for neurodivergence of some kind? I don't know. It never really came together but also, hey, it was short.
This was nice. Extremely pulp, but managed to get at some larger ideas.
