The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. Banks' Culture novels.Īll Systems Red tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics.
For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. But when I headed to my favorite e-book store to buy it (I liked it that much), it was quite pricey for as short as it is.All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. In my case, I was lucky enough to receive an advance review copy. My only issue with the book is a sneaky feeling that it would probably have been better marketed – and priced – as a long-ish novella.
I still came away, though, with a bit of a feeling that I had missed a few things, and so now I am very much looking forward to going back and reading the earlier short stories and novellas in the series.Īll-in-all, I really enjoyed Fugitive Telemetry, which reminded me of a very nice cross of an Isaac Asimov robot story with a Rex Stout mystery – with Murderbot as a two-in-one combination of ultra-logical Wolfe and sardonic Archie. I had not read any previous Murderbot tales, but Wells does a good job of skillfully filling in some backstory without slowing things down. As a seasoned mystery reader, I enjoyed watching Murderbot track down clues (and a few red herrings), communicate with witnesses (both human and not), and finally figure out whodunnit at the end.īut I also felt that the best part of Fugitive Telemetry was watching Murderbot adapt and grow into its new situation, complete with all the benefits and difficulties its increased autonomy represents. But it soon realizes that isn’t going to fly, and it is going to have to help figure out what led to the human’s death, and, of course, find the killer. Murderbot tries the classic “if I had done this, I would have done it better, and you’d never have found the body” excuse – which is probably actually true for Murderbot. Nobody had said anything about not setting up my own systems.”)Īs this very short book opens, Murderbot has found a dead human in the Station mall.
(One of my favorite quotes, from Chapter 2: “I had promised not to hack Station systems. But Murderbot is a security droid with a difference – it has eluded its previous owners and has an unusual degree of autonomy, a very nice touch in snarkiness, and a PhD in hair-splitting. Our protagonist, Murderbot, is a security droid, currently on Preservation Station as part of Dr. I’m a big fan of mysteries, and I like to read mysteries set in places that are new to me – or in this case, imaginary places that are new to me! Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells fills that bill quite nicely. A nice mix of mystery and science fiction…
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