All Systems Red
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Synopsis:
On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid–a self-aware robot that refers to itself as “Murderbot.” All Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to watch some TV. But those pesky humans keep finding themselves in trouble and Murderbot has to actually do its job.
Video
Review
With a character that is described as a robot who refers to itself as a Murderbot sarcastically and who has a lot of hidden liberty, it sounds like it would lead to a fun story. Unfortunately, there isn’t too much of substance to the story.
This book was so dull that I heard someone review it, didn’t remember that I read it, read the entire book again, and was surprised when I found a review that I really agreed with from six years before, and didn’t realize I had already read the book and reviewed it!
Murderbot only gets interesting once it reveals itself to some humans about halfway through the book and even then it’s pretty tame. The plot isn’t terrible but definitely lackluster. With other robots like Star Wars’ HK-47 or Bender from Futurama, there are better foils out there. I won’t be continuing the series and wouldn’t suggest it to others.
Final Grade
D+
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