RogerBW's Blog

All Systems Red, Martha Wells 23 January 2018

2017 science fiction novella. Murderbot is an AI running a light-duty security robot, trying to keep the humans of a planetary survey expedition alive, though it would much rather spend its time catching up on episodes of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Unfortunately its job is going to get rather harder.

I've read some of Wells's fantasy (particularly her early The Element of Fire, which I loved), but I think this is her first venture into non-franchise SF. And it works, rather well; light worldbuilding can be excused, because Murderbot really doesn't care about details that aren't related to its job or its hobbies.

I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that something else? They don't give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions.

There are planetary survey expeditions, and one of the conditions is that the surveyors rent a security robot. But the initial report doesn't seem to have mentioned the burrowing megafauna, and then the other expedition goes ominously quiet.

It's mostly pretty light stuff, with some digs into deeper issues of AI consciousness and legal status (yes, all right, this book is aimed pretty squarely at me). Murderbot is suitably sarcastic and would fit well into a Transhuman Space game, at least the way I tend to run it.

I heard her telling the others to get off my feed and my comm, that she was going to be the only one speaking to me so I wasn't distracted. [She] underestimated my ability to ignore humans but I appreciated the thought.

It's slight, and has an ending that is clearly setup for the next episode, but it's good stuff and I look forward to more. To be followed by Artificial Condition.

This work was nominated for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: The Murderbot Diaries | Next in series: Artificial Condition

  1. Posted by John Dallman at 10:34am on 23 January 2018

    Yup, that is pretty good.

  2. Posted by Chris Suslowicz at 11:38pm on 26 January 2018

    Someone described Murderbot as "a somewhat grouchy Breq" which is an apt description. I enjoyed the hell out of this book, have the sequels on order, and am thinking about getting some of her earlier work.

    Thoroughly recommended: we need more Murderbot.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1