All Systems Red | Martha Wells

A cyborg calling itself "murderbot" is rented out to accompany a research team on a survey mission on a foreign planet. Its job is security, but thanks to a hacked governor module it spends most of its time streaming entertainment programmes directly into its brain. Soon members of the survey team fall victim to strange happenings that appear less and less like mere accidents and more like foul play.

All Systems Red is the first book in the Murderbot Diaries series. The main appeal is most definitely the narrator and protagonist, murderbot. As readers, we can easily empathize with it and obviously see its humanness. Murderbot itself does not think as highly of itself. But its low self-esteem and the low value it ascribes to its life are enforced by the way humans treat it: as property. Add to that an (un-)healthy dose of anxiety and a dash of PTSD, and you've got yourself the cutest little bundle of anxious nerves you can imagine.

The plot is rather on the thin side, but it does what it needs to do: keep up a brisk pace and provide a context for murderbot and the other characters to interact. So if you are looking for something lighthearted, character-centered, and exploring relationships mediated through technology, I recommend uploading this to your brain.

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