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I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
That is a cyborg who calls itself Murderbot. Created and enslaved by a heartless society and used by otherwise fairly decent people who don’t think of it as a person, all it wants is to be left alone so it can catch up on its favorite TV shows. I think we can all identify.
(I think Murderbot refers to itself as it? If not, I will change the pronoun. It's definitely genderless.)
Murderbot’s voice is great, and it’s a very sympathetic and unusual character. It doesn’t long to be human and connect with others and be less lonely, but quite sincerely wants to be left alone. While some of the story is about it connecting with others and very grudgingly coming to care about them, it’s much more about it coming to grips with its own situation and deciding to do something about it. Stories about characters who think they don't need human connections and find that they do are great, but there's a lot of them so it was fun to see something different for a change. There will be sequels and I expect that there will be more connecting with others along the way, but that's not the ultimate journey of this book.
The one part where “killer cyborg as misanthropic fan” fell down for me was the lack of Murderbot being fannish about specific shows. I completely believed it as someone who really would rather be watching TV. But while it mentions specific shows and talks about what it enjoys about TV in general, it doesn’t talk about specific characters it loves or hates or specific plotlines it’s excited about. I think more detail on the shows it loves would have been a fun addition to the story, and I missed it. Especially since based on the reactions I’ve seen, everyone who liked this was reading for Murderbot’s perspective, not for the rather plodding action/conspiracy plot. I’m sure no one would have cared if we’d lost an action sequence in favor of more detail about Murderbot’s favorite soap opera.
While all the elements were solid and the voice was terrific, something about the novella failed to grab me, so I found myself plowing through rather than reading with pure enjoyment. I have had this exact same reaction to literally everything I’ve ever read by Wells, and I am baffled as to why as they’ve all had extremely different plots, characters, and narrative voices. Her premises, tropes, and opening lines often really appeal to me, and this and the Raksura series are favorites in my online circles, which is why I keep trying. I’m not sure what the commonality is that keeps de-grabbing me, but there’s definitely something because Murderbot is completely different from any of her other narrators, and yet my reaction was the same.
If you like the paragraph I quoted at the beginning, you will probably enjoy this more than I did. I think my reaction is pretty idiosyncratic. In fact, I bet that most people who weren’t wowed by this either didn’t like the voice or wanted Murderbot to be more human/emotional or to have more/deeper relationships; that is, they were turned off by my favorite parts.
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries
That is a cyborg who calls itself Murderbot. Created and enslaved by a heartless society and used by otherwise fairly decent people who don’t think of it as a person, all it wants is to be left alone so it can catch up on its favorite TV shows. I think we can all identify.
(I think Murderbot refers to itself as it? If not, I will change the pronoun. It's definitely genderless.)
Murderbot’s voice is great, and it’s a very sympathetic and unusual character. It doesn’t long to be human and connect with others and be less lonely, but quite sincerely wants to be left alone. While some of the story is about it connecting with others and very grudgingly coming to care about them, it’s much more about it coming to grips with its own situation and deciding to do something about it. Stories about characters who think they don't need human connections and find that they do are great, but there's a lot of them so it was fun to see something different for a change. There will be sequels and I expect that there will be more connecting with others along the way, but that's not the ultimate journey of this book.
The one part where “killer cyborg as misanthropic fan” fell down for me was the lack of Murderbot being fannish about specific shows. I completely believed it as someone who really would rather be watching TV. But while it mentions specific shows and talks about what it enjoys about TV in general, it doesn’t talk about specific characters it loves or hates or specific plotlines it’s excited about. I think more detail on the shows it loves would have been a fun addition to the story, and I missed it. Especially since based on the reactions I’ve seen, everyone who liked this was reading for Murderbot’s perspective, not for the rather plodding action/conspiracy plot. I’m sure no one would have cared if we’d lost an action sequence in favor of more detail about Murderbot’s favorite soap opera.
While all the elements were solid and the voice was terrific, something about the novella failed to grab me, so I found myself plowing through rather than reading with pure enjoyment. I have had this exact same reaction to literally everything I’ve ever read by Wells, and I am baffled as to why as they’ve all had extremely different plots, characters, and narrative voices. Her premises, tropes, and opening lines often really appeal to me, and this and the Raksura series are favorites in my online circles, which is why I keep trying. I’m not sure what the commonality is that keeps de-grabbing me, but there’s definitely something because Murderbot is completely different from any of her other narrators, and yet my reaction was the same.
If you like the paragraph I quoted at the beginning, you will probably enjoy this more than I did. I think my reaction is pretty idiosyncratic. In fact, I bet that most people who weren’t wowed by this either didn’t like the voice or wanted Murderbot to be more human/emotional or to have more/deeper relationships; that is, they were turned off by my favorite parts.
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries
