This first novella in the Murderbot Diaries series is set in a far future where exploratory research groups venture out to distant planets. There is a company that oversees these expeditions and it requires that a security robot accompanies each team (at a price, of course).
The main character, Murderbot, is partly robotic and partly human. To me it seems closest to an android, with a lot of human parts. Murderbot is the SecBot assigned to a research team headed by Dr. Mensah. As the story begins, it is monitoring the activities of small team sent to investigate a specific area when a very scary large "hostile" explodes out of the bottom of a crater and attacks one member of the team. Murderbot assesses the situation, deals with the hostile, and gets them back to safety, but the SecBot has also been damaged in the incident. It can repair itself during rest but this takes a while.
Along the way the crew and the SecBot discover that there is a third group on the planet, unbeknownst to them. They knew of the existence of a second group and they had been briefly in contact with that group, but the third group could be dangerous to them. When they cannot make contact with the other authorized group on the planet, they realize there may be a big problem.
What made this book such a good read is the narration by Murderbot. That character has an unusual and entertaining personality. It is painfully shy around people, and keeps its distance when possible. The job of a SecBot is not usually too demanding, and this one would rather be watching video that it has downloaded than interacting with people. It has made alterations to itself so that it cannot be remotely controlled by "the company" from afar, but this is a secret it has to conceal from the others.
Since we only get the story from Murderbot's perspective and the story is novella length, we don't get a lot of character development of team members other than Dr. Mensah. The other team members have varying degrees of sympathy for and trust in the SecBot after the rescue, and they all have to get used to changing relationships.
All Systems Red has good pacing, a lot of action, and is entertaining throughout. It ends with a cliff hanger of a sort, but that was fine with me. Even before reading the book, I expected that I would want to continue the series. I am looking forward to learning more of Murderbot's story.
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Publisher: Tor, 2019 (orig. pub. 2017)
Length: 149 pages
Format: Hardcover
Series: Murderbot Diaries, #1
Genre: Science fiction thriller
Source: Purchased in June 2020.
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