Review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

This futuristic universe is dominated by corporations, with all planetary missions for exploration, mining, etc, needing to be approved by the Company. [Yes, Wells actually called it the Company. It makes sense.] When a mission is approved, a security unit (SecUnit) is provided for safety.

Enter Murderbot, a SecUnit who has hacked its own governor module and is therefore capable of doing whatever it wants.

This is how it opens the story:

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realised 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.

Murderbot’s narrative is cynical, sulky and oh so relatable. It just wants to be left alone to watch its shows. It doesn’t want to work, it doesn’t want to look after annoying humans, it just wants to enjoy its stories, in particular, Sanctuary Moon.

Which is what it’s doing. Murderbot chose media over mass murder, so the Company thinks it’s still fully functional and has therefore assigned Murderbot to protect a small group of people from a colony that doesn’t like the Company. The citizens of Preservation Alliance are looking to shore up resources for their freehold, and despite itself, Murderbot comes to like them, especially Mensah, their leader.

There are other corporations on the planet, not all of them safe, and it is incumbent on the apparently disaffected Murderbot to protect them, mostly from themselves, but also from a wider conspiracy that his silly humans stumble upon in their good-natured way.

This is a character driven tale that takes aim at the disenchanted and offers a story far more nuanced than the casual first-person narrative would suggest. There are some good passages that really show the nature of Murderbot, like the introductory sample offered earlier, and this one here, when its clients decide to explore the encroaching dangers around them:

This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.

Murderbot has a fun narrative, a self-deprecating one, and All Systems Red makes good use of the novella format. This is a story that reads well for modern audiences, for Gen Z readers, in particular. It might seem like a lightweight story, clocking in at around 150 pages, but there are waves of subtext on trans experiences, immigrant experiences, those who are on the spectrum, or anyone masking who they really are. Identity and autonomy themes are explored through Murderbot’s guardianship, and there’s also a commentary on the power of corporations and those who really don’t stand a chance against them. Beneath that is a David and Goliath layer of subtext that plays out across the whole novella series. [There's also a novel. I may cover it with the rest of the Murderbot Diaries.]

And it does this while remaining fun.

A point to ponder …

The reader sees the world from Murderbot’s first person perspective, a character who is essentially an AI tool and only starting to test the limits of its self-awareness. Because of this, some of the other characters and settings can appear flat, generic or one-note.

There’s an interesting passage that I believe addresses this:

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.

Murderbot offers not only a key insight into its character, but a reason for its lack of interest in the world at large; it’s just so confused about the world within. It’s worth asking what Wells wants the reader to focus on in this narrative, and to also consider the construct and purpose of a first-person narrative. Murderbot is basically a slave to its owners, and it’s not fully human. Emotions aren’t a big part of Murderbot’s characterization [in this book], so it’s hardly going to show that in its perspective for the reader.

This leads to a story that is short but packed with action. The stylish narrative carries the plot at an effortless pace, and its reluctantly decent main character has charm enough to balance a snarky internal monologue with competent action.

All Systems Red won a Hugo, a Nebula, and an Alex award. This book is no slouch, and it comes recommended for anyone who enjoys or is studying stories about AI, android emancipation, and underdogs punching above their weight.