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A Terrible Killing Machine Failure in All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Beth Tabler

“I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,00 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.” 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Synopsis

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

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Awards

My Thoughts

I started listening to All Systems Red on Scribd with the hopes of passing some time listening to something fun and simple while doing kitchen chores. Boy, was I wrong. I ended up not only cleaning the kitchen, reorganizing the pantry, fridge, cooking dinner, and meals for the next day in the hopes of listening to as much of this as possible before having to put it away for the night. It is compulsive and addictive read. Once you start reading it, it is so short and exciting you will not want to stop till you get to the end.

“Yes, talk to Murderbot

about its feelings.

The idea was so painful

I dropped to 97 percent

efficiency. I’d rather

climb back into Hostile One’s mouth.”

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

All Systems Red is a perfect and tidy story. When I say tidy, it isn’t derogatory. Novellas have to get a lot done in a short amount of time. The author needs to coney, thought, history, emotion, narrative, and plot progression, so all of the choices the author makes need to be concise and tidy. In Martha Wells, All Sytems Red she created an exceptional character in Murderbot, Murderbot being the name he calls himself. He is cynical, confused, and courageous but more than anything, Murderbot has very human emotions. This character works quite well within the context of a novella because the reading audience has a cultural dialog regarding machines with human emotions, i.e., The Terminator. There isn’t a lot of groundwork to be laid, we already have a feel for what this scenario could look like. Murderbot is an artificial life form with organic components, and these components work in tandem with its artificial ones to create the perfect killing machine.

How life works for the Murderbot is that it is deployed on contract through its host company, The Company. In the first installment of the quadrilogy of short stories, Murderbot is protecting and defending a group of scientists and geographers on an inhospitable planet. Murderbot hacks its mainframe to start making independent choices aside from its company programming. Most of its decisions consist of which type of soap opera to watch on the entertainment channels available at its outpost. However, when another outpost on the same planet gets attacked, Murderbot needs to step in to protect the scientists that it has become attached to. What plays out over the brief story is exciting scenes, great dialog (both internal and external), and an excellent plot jump to the next novella. I loved this, and it is easily understood why the author received so many well-deserved accolades. It is funny and enjoyable.

Questions

  1. what do you think of how thinking machines are portrayed in modern media?
  2. How do you like how Murderbot named himself?

Procurement

I listened to an audio recording of this on Scribd.

About the Author

Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), the Ile-Rien series (including The Death of the Necromancer) as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, media tie-ins (for Star Wars and Stargate: Atlantis), and non-fiction. Her most recent fantasy novel is The Harbors of the Sun in 2017, the final novel in The Books of the Raksura series. She has a new series of SF novellas, The Murderbot Diaries, published by Tor.com in 2017 and 2018. She was also the lead writer for the story team of Magic: the Gathering‘s Dominaria expansion in 2018. She has won a Nebula Award, a Hugo Award, an ALA/YALSA Alex Award, a Locus Award, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. Her books have been published in eleven languages. 

She has had short stories in the magazines Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Lone Star Stories, Lightspeed Magazine, and Stargate Magazine, and in the Tsunami Relief anthology Elemental, The Other Half of the Sky, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, Mech: Age of Steel, and The Gods of Lovecraft. 

She has essays in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever, Mapping the World of Harry Potter, Chicks Unravel Time, and The Kobold Guide to Magic.

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