“All Systems Red” by Martha Wells

This was another ebook that I nabbed from Tor.com! (They gave out 3 for March, very exciting.) This first of the trio was short, but I really enjoyed it.

The main character is a SecUnit, or a Security Unit. Essentially they are a robot with some human parts deployed for security. The protagonist calls themselves “Murderbot” so that’s how I’ll refer to them. Murderbot is accompanying a group of scientists on an exploration mission on another planet. Eventually they realize that the larger outpost they came from is offline, and when they get there they only find dead bodies. Murderbot realizes that someone is hacking the SecUnits to cause them to go rogue and kill humans. So together with the humans, they come up with a plan to respond once these humans come looking for them. In the end, they are victorious and get home safe and the humans want to adopt Murderbot, but Murderbot decides to leave and live their own life.

Now there are some holes in the plot, how they get off the planet and home being one of them, and why these people are killing humans and things being another, but that honestly didn’t bother me that much. Possibly it was right there in the text and I ignored it. What was much more fascinating to me was the relationship between Murderbot and the humans. From the beginning, the humans want to try and connect with their SecUnit, but the Murderbot wants nothing to do with that. However, you do see the Murderbot care, deeply, about the people that they are protecting. By the end they refer to the leader of the expedition as “my favorite human.” It’s really cute.

I feel like so often stories like these are told from the perspective of the human in the relationship, not the robot. It’s nice to see it turned on its head and dealt with so much humanity and feeling.