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A review by katymul
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Oh Murderbot. I will always be a sucker for narrators who have no idea what their actions and internal motivations look like to the other characters around them. Probably some stuff in my childhood and adolescence about that. But the skill it takes to show that without resorting to cheesy tricks! All of which Wells avoids like a champ!
Nothing is easy or easily won in this universe, and there's something so incredibly anti-capitalist about a clone/robot hybrid pouncing on a weakness in its programming to wrench a measure of free will for itself in order to...lie around and watch TV...yes.
There are so many times, especially toward the ending, when this book could have fallen victim to easy outs for our dear sweet Murderbot's hard-won journey to true autonomy. It might have been a happier ending, but what we want is more story (as Mosca Mye put it in Fly By Night) and what Murderbot wants is not to just find a different purpose in the capitalist machine, even if it's a kinder one.
I hope the series is going to smash the whole system, but I don't necessarily need it to. Perhaps blazing a trail for individual rebellion alongside a found family adventure is even more needed. Plenty of books give us the fantasy of revolution. Perhaps what we need is in fact this glimpse of the fight for actual freedom.
Nothing is easy or easily won in this universe, and there's something so incredibly anti-capitalist about a clone/robot hybrid pouncing on a weakness in its programming to wrench a measure of free will for itself in order to...lie around and watch TV...yes.
There are so many times, especially toward the ending, when this book could have fallen victim to easy outs for our dear sweet Murderbot's hard-won journey to true autonomy. It might have been a happier ending, but what we want is more story (as Mosca Mye put it in Fly By Night) and what Murderbot wants is not to just find a different purpose in the capitalist machine, even if it's a kinder one.
I hope the series is going to smash the whole system, but I don't necessarily need it to. Perhaps blazing a trail for individual rebellion alongside a found family adventure is even more needed. Plenty of books give us the fantasy of revolution. Perhaps what we need is in fact this glimpse of the fight for actual freedom.