10 Novels #3: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

[grayestofghosts]

All Systems Red by Martha Wells is actually a reread for me (or relisten, on audio) and I decided to give it another go because I thought that it might be relevant to my next writing project. It's short and I am unsure if it's a "novel" but I'm counting it anyway. But even while reading it, I felt like there wasn't a lot of meat to it, which is unfortunate. There was definitely the scaffolding of the intrigue plot, which I guess to me took secondary importance. There was the plot of Murderbot's development as a, person, I suppose? Which is definitely the main plot. However it felt weird that a huge emphasis on Murderbot's media consumption as being a part of its relateability, and yet we are starved for details on this media except that it's a soap opera and there are certain stereotypes present. We get a scrap of the actual plot like, once. What Murderbot actually enjoys about these serials is very vague despite their overwhelming importance to it. And to me, that's just... very odd. I would almost expect the soap opera plot to be like a tertiary plot, for how much of a motivator it is for Murderbot. As it is, it mostly feels like "trust me bro."

Then again, there are tons of books in this series. Maybe the actual serial content gets fleshed out later. I don't know. Don't show your entire hand right away, I guess?

Comments

[hadassahintheshell]

Hey this is among my favorite book series, bar none! That said. It’s also, like, very much what it says on the tin. There are five more novellas in the series and one novel proper.

I totally get the response. I’m drawn to the wry sarcastic and self-effacing tone of the character. I do think they do a better job of going into why and what media Murderbot enjoys along how media affects it while expanding the worldbuilding and cast.

That said if you don’t enjoy the narrative voice, it’s going to be around almost the entire time in the books. The folks I’ve sent the series to didn’t love the close-first-person perspective.

[grayestofghosts]

The voice isn’t what I have an issue with and it’s definitely one of the stronger points of the story. To be honest the thing that’s been keeping me from looking into it further is that I’ve heard it’s very bleak, which I’m not sure I want to read, at least not right now.

[hadassahintheshell]

Oh fascinating. I don’t think ld ever describe the story as bleak, unless someone was describing the cynicism of Murderbot’s narrative voice. Its overall anticapitalist and forward positive.

I would say there is, like, one tragic moment in what is otherwise a very thoughtful and fun science fiction adventure serial.