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Thursday, February 6, 2020

All Systems Red

A friend of mine bought me Martha Wells' All Systems Red: the Murderbot Diaries last year for Christmas.  And as seems to be typical for me, it took me a long time to decide to actually read it.  It's a short book, so I sat down last night to read it and ended up finishing it in one go.

All Systems Red sees Murderbot, our hero, contracted to protect a group of humans who are investigating a planet.  Murderbot is a SecUnit who hacked their governor chip some time ago and has been doing everything in their power to remain under the radar.  They could have gone on a murderous rampage, but they discovered the entertainment feeds and so just wants to spend their day watching soaps. They continue doing their job as expected so no one becomes suspicious.  (They also only refer to themself as Murderbot privately).

But the humans' mission gets off to an odd start; a creature attacks them in a place where their data said there should be no threats.  And not long after that, they discover that their map is missing pieces.  And when a neighbouring exploration team goes dark, it's up to the humans and Murderbot to figure out what exactly is going on!

All Systems Red was a lot of fun to read.  I loved Murderbot.  They were a hilarious narrator.  I also loved how they were super uncomfortable around humans (even though they loved TV humans) - it made them such an interesting character.  I also really liked the human characters they were protecting, and how Murderbot formed a real bond with them; by the end they weren't interested in doing a half-assed job, their humans brought out the best in them. 

After finishing the book, I messaged my friend who got it for me.  He told me there are more Murderbot Diaries!  So I ran to the library to get the next one. :)

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