All Systems Red by Martha Wells

[lightreads]

All Systems Red

3/5. That novella everyone is so in love with about the security robot who hacked its control module and calls itself “Murderbot.”

I am not in love with it. I suspected that going in, since the theme in everyone’s adoration has been “Murderbot! So relatable!” And I was always like, “okay, I believe you, but doesn’t that miss the entire point of AI?” And I was right. Contrasting the robot POV in this novella with that in Newitz’s Autonomous is revealing: the Newitz book is uncomfy and thorny and weird as hell, and the Wells is . . . comfy isn’t quite the right word, but let’s put it this way. The reason everyone finds Murderbot so identifiable? Yeah, that would be because the book spends roughly a third of its volume working really hard to manipulate the reader into feeling that way. I mean, making Murderbot an introverted media fanatic? That’s right up there with making Harry Dresden a DND playing pulp fantasy fan.

So, it was trying too hard, which got on my nerves, but more interestingly, I don’t want to identify with robots like that? I want to struggle across a great void of cognitive distance to grasp after robot POV. I want it to alienate and confuse. Newitz’s book is all about that, and how to messily, imperfectly bridge it. Wells’s book is sort of trying to be about bridging it, but there’s no mess there. Just feel-good manipulations.

IDK, I’ll read the next one, because I did enjoy this and I do think it’s doing a thing. It’s just not a robot thing I care about.

Comments

[runpunkrun]

I hear you. I enjoyed the book, but I'm not entirely convinced Murderbot is a bot because it is so human. I feel like vat-grown cyborg or something is more in keeping with its style.

[kate_nepveu]

I read it as doing a different thing: Murderbot is relatable because Murderbot is a person, and Murderbot's personhood is the point, or more precisely, the way that people get designated persons or not persons is the point. Which does not have to be a thing you're interested in, either, mind!

Now I'm trying to think of alienating robot POV and not coming up with any -- the servitors in _Ninefox Gambit_, which I FINALLY just finished, aren't particulary -- which makes me wonder if I should squeeze in _Autonomous_ before Arisia when I am going to be on a panel about artifically-created persons . . . in a week . . . Hmm.

[okrablossom]

This is a great perspective. Thanks for sharing. I think I'm probably the only person who read this for the "mystery on an explored planet" plot but I like those a lot :)

Thanks for this review, it explains why

[jesse_the_k]

I enjoyed both Murderbot and Autonomous: the first was a donut and the second dark rye bread.