All Systems Red by Martha Wells
pages: 144
released: May 2017
publisher: Tor.com
cover love: ♥♥

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. 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 is 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 Murderbot 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 Murderbot to get to the truth. from Goodreads

Thoughts:

When I picked up All Systems Red, I was looking for a short read but was also curious about a story that was told from the perspective of a robot. But now, looking back, I could see how that decision could’ve foreshadowed my one star rating…

As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.

murderbot

ASR is a short novel about Murderbot, a hired security-detail bot, that is on a regular security assignment when it realizes that all the missing data and issues the team it’s assigned to, has been experiencing, are linked to a bigger cover up and it’s up to Murderbot to get its clients back to their planet safely and still alive.

Honestly, I knew from the first few pages that me and ASR were absolutely not compatible. From jump, this book read like a textbook. Everything felt mechanical in the writing. I felt like I was suffering sometimes to turn page after page. DULL is really the best word to describe my reading experience.

What did this book have to offer? In my opinion, nothing. It was void of any real literary sustenance. The story lacked so much of what could have made it enjoyable: character depth, some prose dusted around, better plot mechanisms (because the plot leaned on the convenient side way too much). And most important, emotional connection. But what did I expect from a book told from the side of a monotonous robot? Throughout the story, Murderbot repeatedly tells readers that it does not care about anything and just wants to be left alone to watch episodes of its favorite show. However, Murderbot shows through its actions and decisions, that it does actually care significantly about the well being of its clients. It does have some organic matter merged with its robotic structure and clearly has developed feelings for life and the preservation of humans. But again, this did not make for a better story dynamic. For me, it was about the weak impact ASR had on me by the last page. The way the author chose to tell the story pushed me away emotionally (kinda like Murderbot wanted, lol).

Basically, ASR was nothing spectacular. Very disappointing.

The series has about 7 books out now, but I will not be continuing The Murderbot Diaries.

2023 PopSugar Challenge: #9 (a book with a color in the title)

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