Jeffrey Keeten's Reviews > All Systems Red

”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 was well over 35,000 hour or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.”



He is an android SecUnit assigned to a group of scientists who are taking surface samples on some far flung planet. Everything is going fine. He is binge watching his way through a space opera called Sanctuary Moon, which is about the only thing that is keeping him sane. The humans he is assigned to keep alive are better than the average group, but really he just wants to be left alone so he can figure out exactly who he is now that he can choose what commands he obeys.

It is a secret that must remain hush hush, or he will be stripped down to factory settings and wake up with a functioning governor module.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to be Daniel Day-Lewis; a version of Arnold Schwarzenegger will work just fine.

And then some creature tries to eat one of his humans. SecUnits are designed to throw themselves at something. 90% of their bodies can be regrown or replaced in a cubicle that is designed to power them back up quickly. In the battle he is in with the creature, he manages to win, but by the time he gets back to the habitat, he is operating at about 58%.

Not good.

You would think a hostile creature attack would be enough to have on his plate, but the habitat of the other group of scientists can not be reached. He soon realizes that there is a grand conspiracy from some unknown entity of corporate origin who wants to wipe the whole team out. This situation is so far beyond his designed capabilities that he is having a very human reaction. ”I was depressed this morning. I’d tried watching some new serials last night and even they couldn’t distract me; reality was too intrusive. It was hard not to think about how everything was going to go wrong and they were all going to die and I was going to get blasted to pieces or get another governor module stuck in me.”

The other baffling problem is the humans in his care are starting to like him and treat him like a real person. An interesting development, but he is feeling more annoyed by the change in their behavior than he is feeling vindicated by the elevation in status. Not to mention, can he really trust the humans not to reveal his true nature to the kind of people who would cut him up for parts rather than try to understand the new complexities of his emerging personality?

It is better to stay paranoid.

He can’t escape his caged past, nor the name he has given himself that can only be thought in the confines of his own matrix…Murderbot.

I always love stories about androids becoming more sentient and, in many cases, becoming better humans than humans. Unfortunately, the bar is pretty low. The struggle that Murderbot has with ungoverned feelings and the accompanying illogic that comes from being, dare I say, affectionate are just beginning. I’m sure this will be explored further in the three books that are already scheduled to be published. He is a loveable, murderous character, who is navigating those turbulent, emotional waters that take normal humans decades to start to figure out. Martha Wells has infused the story with the right mix of angst and humor that make the story fun and thrilling to read. I’m certainly on board for more.

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