ALL SYSTEMS RED: Martha Wells: 1 (Murderbot Diaries)

Product Information

I said, “Because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.”The ending of Network Effect left me so happy and hopeful. Because I love seeing our MB grow and develop and find what it wants and go for it. The universe owes it that at the very least. “(Confession time: that moment, when the humans or augmented humans realize you’re really here to help them. I don’t hate that moment.)” No. No, that’s all right. I know you don’t care for it.” She wipes her face. There are tears in her eyes, because she’s an idiot. Do moral dilemmas come more tightly coiled up on themselves than this? And breathes there an author whose exploration of these intense and weighty issues is so delightfully deft and assuredly airy than Author Wells?

Mental Health Recovery Arc: As of Network Effect she is working through trauma over her kidnapping. Androids Are People, Too: They're fully sapient, feel emotions, and form emotional attachments to other beings. But they're constrained by governor modules.

If It's You, It's Okay: Murderbot Hates Being Touched - touching humans while rescuing them is different and fine - but when it very awkwardly tells Mensah that she can hug it if she needs to, it finds that this isn't awful. It likens this to Tapan sleeping next to it or Don Abene leaning against it after being rescued, both moments that hit it hard when they happened. In the short story "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory", it gives this offer to Mensah again and even says "It's not terrible" when she says she knows it doesn't care for it. From Murderbot, that's a lot. It can’t really be read as a standalone story, but it’s a nice addition to Murderbot story arc. Seeing Mensah’s thoughts on Corporation Rim dehumanization of sentient being because they are “tools” and not supposedly persons But you're making one right now. You can't help it; it's human nature. One person with whom I am no longer friends said to me, "stop being so selfish and think of how much worse it is for my (Hispanic) people!"

The Not-Love Interest: To Murderbot. She’s the only person it really feels comfortable opening up to emotionally, helping her is a major motivation for it early on, and it spends Exit Strategy rescuing her personally. Their relationship is entirely platonic. This was a fairly short interlude told from Dr. Mensah's point of view, as she tries to get a hang on her post- Exit Strategy PTSD, and her increasing dependence on Murderbot. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. I was stoked when there was going to be a full length novel of our favorite MB! I’m hoping there are many more books to come. There are more of the characters we love in the book as well and the usual mess that ensues!Not that I don't adore Murderbot! I do! But breaking out of the one PoV that we have on the Corporation Rim is a breath of fresh air.

The unique writing style is the best thing about these books (aside from character construction). It doesn’t follow typical storytelling constructs and often comes across as more conversational than anything else. There’s a great deal of punctuation used to convey Murderbot’s sardonic tone, and no shortage of profanity for comedic impact. I’ve never read anything that comes this close to how I communicate in my daily life, so even the bones of how the story was presented sang to my soul. There were a few occasions where the sarcastic voice was a bit heavy-handed, but this is one of the few cases I would rather a little too much than not enough. When you exist at the whim of the electorate, as people like me...disabled, unhomed, elderly, infirm...must do, you're a thing. A profit point. An expense center. Not yourself, not someone with a lifetime's issues and lessons. I'm fortunate that I live in a place that allows me to be as independent as possible, and that I did enough useful work for enough years that my (HUGELY reduced in value) investment in government debt affords me the relative safety of housing, medical care, and therapies that I need. Had I stayed in Texas, had I been darker of skin hue, had I not had the mind-bogglingly good fortune to have my breakdown while talking to the one person who could, and would, and did help me...well, I'd be dead, and that's just the facts. Equal-Opportunity Evil: Differences in genders, sexualities, and ethnicities are no big deal in the Corporate Rim. All that matters about a person is how much they can be exploited for corporate profit.Martha Wells is the creator and the author of fictional novel series known as The Murderbot Diaries. The series first got started in 2017 with the debut of the first novel in the series, All Systems Red. In 2018, the second book came out, titled Artificial Condition. The third novel soon followed, titled Rogue Protocol. Next came the fourth novel, Exit Strategy. Before the fifth novel in the series is a short story titled Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory. This is followed by the fifth novel, Network Effect. The sixth novel is titled Fugitive Telemetry, and the seventh novel is titled System Collapse. Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency." Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize. Eddy, Cheryl (September 16, 2019). "We've Got the Exclusive Cover Reveal and Opening Lines of Martha Wells' Murderbot Novel, Network Effect". io9 . Retrieved May 6, 2020.