All Systems Red
By Martha Wells
The post- but still part-human cyborg has proven to be one of the most enduring figures in SF. And as our tools and technology lead to further extensions and augmentations in the best McLuhanesque fashion, it keeps getting easier to identify with these evolving human-machine hybrids.
The narrator of All Systems Red is a corporate cyborg unit named Murderbot. Despite having a bad-ass name, Murderbot actually has a shy, retiring personality, well-suited for the task of providing security for a team of scientists investigating a remote planet. This should be a simple task, giving Murderbot lots of free time to watch cable dramas while ignoring the annoying humans. But then things go crazy. Satellite communications are disrupted and contact is lost with a neighbouring research station. Murderbot will have to rise to the occasion if the team is going to survive.
All Systems Red is a quick read, the length of a novella, and Wells’s storytelling is light on its feet, making for a thrilling action yarn with a catchy plot and a conflicted narrator many readers will be able to relate to.
Alex on SF 