Summary: A sentient security robot who would rather watch soap operas than interact with humans, has to save the humans who are on his job from both the planet they are surveying, and those who are trying to keep the secrets of the planet.
I am in a season where I have too much data entry work to do, and I have been reading long heavy books recently. With the interest in Project Hail Mary and the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, I have been seeing a lot of social media posts asking for suggestions for science fiction books recently. A series that I have seen frequently recommended is the Murderbot series. All Systems Red is the first book and it was novella length and available from my library and I finished it in one morning.
The robot refers to themself as “murderbot” but doesn’t have a name. The narrator is male, but the book says they are not gendered as a security robot (only sexbots are gendered, the rest are not.)
After an accident where murderbot, I think accidentally, killed a bunch of people on a previous job, the robot figured out how to hack its security system so that it would not be required to follow orders from “the company”.
The robot has very high social anxiety and would prefer not having to interact with humans and tries to spend as much time as possible watching TV, especially soap opera serials. This book was novella length (as is the second in the series) with a simple plot. The character is engaging and I enjoy the dry humor, and the audiobook narration. At the end of the first book, you understand why this is framed as a first person narrative style and it works as a good set up to a longer series.
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries #1 by Martha Wells Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook