All Systems Red — Martha Wells

Before you begin this, do read Compulsory to get a quick introduction to our main protagonist, Murderbot.

All Systems Red finds Murderbot hired out to a planetary survey team who really don’t seem to be needing much looking after, after all, there’s no dangerous fauna or flora on this planet and all the members of the survey team are all nice and friendly.   So Murderbot spends most of his time downloading and watching all its favourite TV shows, that is until suddenly things start going very wrong and life threatening to the survey team he is supposed to be protecting.

On top of this, the survey team also find out that Murderbot has hacked its control unit and is, and never has been, under their control.

While only 1352 Kindle loc points long, this novella really packs it in and is just lots of that non-stop story telling from the get-go.   There’s a reason this book has so many accolades:

Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Alex Award
Winner: 2018 Locus Award
One of the Verge’s Best Books of 2017
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

Super good and now it’s straight into Artificial Condition, for more Murderbot adventures.

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