June 2019 Book Club: All Systems Red

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Strong Language



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.

I've had this on my to-read list for a long time and had pretty high expectations after seeing all the glowing reviews. The story was surprisingly lighter than I thought it would be. That didn't really disappoint me, I was just thinking it was going to be darker in tone. I ended up loving Murderbot. It was at times very amusing to see things from its perspective, and I really liked the sometimes awkward interactions between it and the humans in the story. The fact that it spent a good bit of time bingeing TV shows was also very amusing.

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

 

This was our book club book for May and there was some debate about whether Murderbot is a "he" or a "she" most people thought it was a female. Although I was leaning slightly toward male in the beginning, I think mainly because of the audio book narrator, in the end I think Murderbot seems pretty androgynous. I also doubt it would call itself male or female since the thought of being human is a horrible thought to our dear SecUnit.

If you are looking for a quick sci-fi read, then look no further.