Jens reviewed All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
Review of 'All Systems Red' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
What a ride! A short trip into the mind of a Murderbot, uh, sorry, a Security Unit, who narrates this adventure in a unique way. A fun and exciting trip, murder and intrigue, a sinister "Corporation", budding relationships (not necessarily the romantic kind) between the characters, and quite a few laugh-out-loud moments -- and all of this in an audiobook of just 3.5 hours! Recommended to everyone who likes SciFi, robots, robots discovering their personalities and/or humanity, and slightly (?) cynical (?) narrators.
Not recommended to people who are looking for in-depth discussions of mysterious, or super-sophisticated plotlines. This is a short novella with a straightforward plot.
I'm looking forward to discovering how this character will develop, and what other adventures Murderbot will encounter in the subsequent books
Kevin R. Free does a great job as a narrator, with the right balance between acting and natural-sounding speech.
I do think …
What a ride! A short trip into the mind of a Murderbot, uh, sorry, a Security Unit, who narrates this adventure in a unique way. A fun and exciting trip, murder and intrigue, a sinister "Corporation", budding relationships (not necessarily the romantic kind) between the characters, and quite a few laugh-out-loud moments -- and all of this in an audiobook of just 3.5 hours! Recommended to everyone who likes SciFi, robots, robots discovering their personalities and/or humanity, and slightly (?) cynical (?) narrators.
Not recommended to people who are looking for in-depth discussions of mysterious, or super-sophisticated plotlines. This is a short novella with a straightforward plot.
I'm looking forward to discovering how this character will develop, and what other adventures Murderbot will encounter in the subsequent books
Kevin R. Free does a great job as a narrator, with the right balance between acting and natural-sounding speech.
I do think it's a missed opportunity not to use a more androgynous voice though - the protagonist is decidedly non-binary, and the narrator's deep, "masculine"-sounding voice took this element of the story away for me.
If you are looking for a somewhat more serious execution of this trope, have a look at [b:Klara and the Sun|54120408|Klara and the Sun|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603206535l/54120408.SY75.jpg|84460796] (see my review) - less murderous extraplanetary adventuring, more domestic interactions between "robots" and humans.
