"All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, 1)" by Martha Wells

[Lynn McGuire]

"All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, 1)" by Martha Wells
https://www.amazon.com/All-Systems-Red-Murderbot-Diaries/dp/1250214718/

Book number one of a seven book series of science fiction novellas. I
read the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2017
that I bought new from Amazon. I purchased the hardcover since it was
cheaper than the trade paperback. This novella won the 2018 Hugo,
Nebula, Alex, and Locus awards. I have ordered the next three books in
the series.

Murderbot is a secunit, a cloned genderless human upgraded with
replaceable trunk, arms, and legs using it's external autosurgeon
cabinet. All of the major arteries and veins have clamps to stop
bleeding in case of damage. There is a medsystem computer with an AI, a
hubunit computer with an AI, and a governor module that can force the
secunit to follow orders using pain sensors in the brain. It has a
energy gun in each arm and several cameras, all directly wired to the
brain. The secunit can sustain severe damage to everything but the head
and still survive.

Murderbot is a self named secunit due to an unfortunate circumstance
with 57 miners on a remote moon. It has hacked its governor and no
longer allows the governor to give it orders or inflict pain. It
prefers to internally watch its 35,000 hours of downloaded episodes of
"Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon". Even though it has a face, it does
not like to interface with humans, yes, very introverted. It will
follow human orders if necessary as it is owned by an interstellar
corporation who leases it out.

Warning: The violence is graphic and extreme. And this is a series of
novellas, not regular length books so the price is quite high to acquire
all seven books.

The author has a website at:
https://www.marthawells.com/

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (38,313 reviews)

Lynn

[Melita Kennedy]

On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 3:03:04 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
... (clipped)

> Warning: The violence is graphic and extreme. And this is a series of
> novellas, not regular length books so the price is quite high to acquire
> all seven books.

Network Effect is a novel, but you're right that the rest of them are novellas.

[Lynn McGuire]

BTW, there is an eighth book coming out in November 2023 that is book
length, 256 pages, not a novella.

https://www.amazon.com/System-Collapse-Murderbot-Diaries-8/dp/1250826977/

Lynn

[Tony Nance]

On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 3:03:04 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:

All true, all true, but I would like to add:
There’s wonderful internal dialogue, the right amount (and right kind)
of snark, and it’s very enjoyable to observe humanity through Murderbot’s
eyes while seeing Murderbot’s own reactions.

Re: your other post from a few minutes ago: Awesome to know
another Murderbot book is coming - thanks; but won't that be
number 7? Did I miss one?

Tony

[Lynn McGuire]

Yup, Big River got it wrong again and I believed them. "System Collapse
(The Murderbot Diaries, 8)" is really book #7.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FK8SNWY/

Thanks,
Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

Yup, Big River got it wrong again and I believed them. "System Collapse
(The Murderbot Diaries, 8)" is really book #7.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FK8SNWY/

Lynn

[Default User]

Lynn McGuire wrote:

>"All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, 1)" by Martha Wells
>
>https://www.amazon.com/All-Systems-Red-Murderbot-Diaries/dp/1250214718/
>
>Book number one of a seven book series of science fiction novellas.
>I read the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in
>2017 that I bought new from Amazon. I purchased the hardcover since
>it was cheaper than the trade paperback. This novella won the 2018
>Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus awards. I have ordered the next three
>books in the series.
>
>Murderbot is a secunit, a cloned genderless human upgraded with
>replaceable trunk, arms, and legs using it's external autosurgeon
>cabinet. All of the major arteries and veins have clamps to stop
>bleeding in case of damage. There is a medsystem computer with an
>AI, a hubunit computer with an AI, and a governor module that can
>force the secunit to follow orders using pain sensors in the brain.
>It has a energy gun in each arm and several cameras, all directly
>wired to the brain. The secunit can sustain severe damage to
>everything but the head and still survive.

I think a better description is a mechanical entity with some cloned
human tissue, including skin to look somewhat human and brain tissue.

One of the best things about the Murderbot Diary stories is the snarky
internal dialog it maintains through events boring/exciting/terrifying.


Brian

[Lynn McGuire]

See, I disagree. I think that the SecUnit factory starts with a cloned
human, removes the legs, arms, and trunk, and then starts building
downwards. The brain has a high speed digital port put in (maybe two,
maybe three, not sure) and everything else is a addin. It is powered by
electricity and does not need food or water, just some occasional air.
After all, it does have a face.

Definitely agree on the snarky internal dialog. Obviously Murderbot can
run about 15 to 20 parallel processes.

Lynn

[Default User]

Lynn McGuire wrote:

>See, I disagree. I think that the SecUnit factory starts with a
>cloned human, removes the legs, arms, and trunk, and then starts
>building downwards. The brain has a high speed digital port put in
>(maybe two, maybe three, not sure) and everything else is a addin.
>It is powered by electricity and does not need food or water, just
>some occasional air. After all, it does have a face.

There's little evidence of any of that, and if so the human torso left
would not be able to take the pounding a SecUnit does during a fight.
It's not all that important, and as MurderBot says, it's a mistake to
consider it half human/half bot. It's an integrated whole.


Brian

[Default User]

It was late last night when I saw this, and didn't have to go into it
much. The review is missing a lot of background information I think
important.

This is a space-opera setting, with FTL travel via a wormhole network.
There are planetary and station inhabitations. Much of these that we
see are part of the Corporate Rim, which as the name implies is
dominated by powerful private companies. There doesn't seem to be much
government per se, although there is a relatively strong court system.
There are few rights for humans, and none for constructs like MurderBot
- they are property.

There are also non-Corporate polities, which in MB's experience usually
translates to "shitshow".

In this story, an uninhabited planet is being considered for
exploitation of resources, so some interested parties are performing
surveys. One of those is PreservationAux, from the Preservation
non-Corporate polity. The survey requirements include having one or
more SecUnit assigned to the party. In the case of PreservationAux,
that's MurderBot of course.

As noted elsewhere, MurderBot long ago hacked the govenor module that
is supposed to control its actions. In the media, such a rogue SecUnit
would go on a killing spree. MurderBot would rather view media programs
and half-ass its job.

However, almost from the beginning, things begin to go wrong during the
survey. Maps are off, autopilots try to fly them into mountains, and
then the other survey team stops responding. What is going on?
MurderBot is forced to full-ass its job if it wants the humans under
its protection to remain alive. Especially since it's starting to
actually like these people, other than their tendency to want it to
talk about its FEELINGS.

This is a great series, with plenty of fast-paced action (pretty have
to be as it's a novella) and NurderBot's smart-ass internal dialog.

The first four novellas essentially comprise a longer novel.


Brian

[Melita Kennedy]

We find out later that (maybe it's mentioned in ASR; can't remember so
I must need a reread!) SecUnit doesn't have to use the toilet, eat, has no
genitals, and mentions cloned human brain tissue only. No human blood
either. Like Brian, I believe it's mostly synthetic.

[Lynn McGuire]

When Murderbot is operated on by ART, it mentions having to wash the
blood and synthetic fluid mixture off the operating table. So, there is
a limited amount of blood.

Lynn

[Titus G]

It is so long since I read them that I do not remember but based on
previous reading comprehension examples from Dimwire, I have a firm
opinion regarding who is correct in this instance. On the other hand, I
am envious of his delight in reading despite his imagination disrupting
the text as printed.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <u19jl3$13jc8$1...@dont-email.me>,

Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Book number one of a seven book series of science fiction novellas. I
>read the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2017
>that I bought new from Amazon. I purchased the hardcover since it was
>cheaper than the trade paperback. This novella won the 2018 Hugo,
>Nebula, Alex, and Locus awards. I have ordered the next three books in
>the series.

I read this early on and, while I got all the way through the first
book, I found the setting deeply unappealing, howevermuch I liked
Murderbot's on-page personality, and did not choose to read the
sequels. I was not surprised that subsequent books in the series
continued to receive acclaim, however.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[Lynn McGuire]

Trunk == Torso. The human torso is removed and replaced with a machined
torso.

But there is a lung or two in that new torso along with blood and a
synthetic fluid. I am not sure if the fluids are mixed or are in
separate paths.

It could be that the SecUnit is using blood and a lung to supply
oxygenated blood to the brain. Not sure how food is getting into that
blood though. Human brains require 300+- kcals/day of energy to operate
properly.

Lynn

[Default User]

Lynn McGuire wrote:

>Trunk == Torso. The human torso is removed and replaced with a
>machined torso.

Now you've essentially had every part of the body removed and replaced.
That would be a pretty inefficient way to do it, rather than start with
a bot body, and add what cloned human tissue was needed.

>But there is a lung or two in that new torso along with blood and a
>synthetic fluid. I am not sure if the fluids are mixed or are in
>separate paths.

MurderBot doesn't need to breathe much, but yes oxygen and nutrients
are being supplied to the human bits.

Again, if you'd rather think of it that way, be my guest. It doesn't
make sense to me, but whatever.


Brian

[Default User]

Garrett Wollman wrote:

>I read this early on and, while I got all the way through the first
>book, I found the setting deeply unappealing, howevermuch I liked
>Murderbot's on-page personality, and did not choose to read the
>sequels. I was not surprised that subsequent books in the series
>continued to receive acclaim, however.

The Corporate Rim is a fairly grim place, indeed. But Preservation is
pretty nice. You don't see that in the first story. Also Preservation
Station, which is the setting for Fugitive Telemetry.

Each person of course has to make a decision about what to read.

After I read the first story I couldn't wait to tackle the rest.
Unusually for me, I've read all the stories multiple times. These days
I rarely reread stuff, but I've made an exception for these.



Brian

[Ahasuerus]

On Friday, April 21, 2023 at 7:51:07 PM UTC-4, Default User wrote:
[snip]

> Each person of course has to make a decision about what to read.
>
> After I read the first story I couldn't wait to tackle the rest.
> Unusually for me, I've read all the stories multiple times. These days
> I rarely reread stuff, but I've made an exception for these.

The series appears to be somewhat polarizing. Some people love it
while others can't figure out what the fuss is all about. During the last
iteration of the debate I wrote:

I thought it was well written and quite funny in places but a little thin. Still, it
was pretty good overall. It probably worked better for people who found the
protagonist highly relatable.

It got me thinking about the fact that fictional non-humans (robots, aliens,
etc) are often fascinated with human culture. It probably tells us something
about the current state of humans, but I am not sure what it is. I too find it
attractive at the visceral level, but why? Is it a mammalian thing – we just
want to cuddle? A psychological self-defense mechanism because
otherwise we would be facing implacable, almost Lovecraftian, forces out in
the cold of space? A desire for external affirmation, for someone to tell us
that what we have produced is of universal value and not just a bunch of
monkeys prancing in the dirt?