Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Gooreads Rating: 4.15 Stars Content Rating: R (for violence and language) In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. (goodreads.com) I first heard about this book while I was watching one of Book Roast’s reading wrap up videos and while adult Sci-Fi is not a genre I usually read, the premise and short length of this book appealed to me. And then I happened to see it while I was shelving at the library so I figured it would be fun to at least try it and see if it was anything I’d be interested in. As it turns out, it isn’t really something that I would normally enjoy, but, for some reason, I couldn’t put this novella down. It turned out to be way scarier than I was expecting, though part of the problem might have been that I was reading it at night. I’m also easily scared by space survival stories. Can that be a genre? Is it a genre? You know the kind of story I’m talking about. Like, humans in space—usually explorers or scientists—and then something dire happens that leaves them stranded somewhere or facing a horrifying unknown as well as the fact that they are impossibly far from civilization. You know that kinda story? Does that have a name? I’m calling it space survival. Anyway, I’m not usually a fan of that kind of story because they freak me out too much. I did not like Lost in Space and other similar movies/shows. I prefer space stories with a hint of magic and super unrealistic-ness to them, like The Lunar Chronicles or Star Wars. I don’t like feeling as if the space adventure could actually happen because space, while awesome, is creepy as heck. Moving on! Given my dislike for space survival stories, I did not think that I would like All Systems Red once I realized that it was that sort of story. However, I was proven wrong and, apart from hiding under my blanket and clutching my teddy bear close, I wasn’t even that scared! A popular complaint that I’ve seen about this book is regarding the ending. Now, I’ll try not to say too much, but it does feel like it’s missing something. It sort of jumps from the middle of an action scene where everyone is in danger to the resolution and epilogue without even stopping to take a breath. And I sort of understand why, but it also makes it feel like a few pages have been removed from the book. I’m hoping that some of the missing information will be cleared up in the next books in the series if I choose to read them. As far as characters go, Murderbot and Dr. Mensah were the only ones who you got to know and Dr. Mensah was still not the most fleshed out. But, this series is the Murderbot Diaries and at the beginning of the book Murderbot didn’t particularly care about the human characters, so it makes sense that we would really only get to know about our dear Murderbot. I do hope that in the rest of the series there are other recurring characters who we get to know better. I don’t want Murderbot to be lonely! Another thing that I wish there had been more of was world building. Of course, it’s hard to fit much world building into 144 pages, but I still would have liked to know a bit more about this futuristic world. Is Earth still around? Do people still live there? Do people live on other planets? In space stations? What’s up with the planet that this first book takes place on anyway? I feel like there were some mysteries left unsolved there. At first I was confused about what exactly Murderbot is, but thankfully the book does a good job of revealing that and it doesn’t take too long to grasp. That’s about it for my thoughts on All Systems Red. I enjoyed parts of it, other parts left me with a sense of dread and foreboding, but on the whole I liked it and if I’m ever in the mood to travel back to that corner of space I’ll pick up the sequel. Even though I don’t particularly like Lost in Space, if you did you might also like this book. Or if you want to relate to a socially awkward main character who isn’t sure of who they are, then this book is great for that too. Thanks for reading! If you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure that my security robot isn’t going to kill me. Toodles! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32758901-all-systems-red
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Your girl is at it again! Making the cringiest content you ever done did see (okay, not the cringiest, but you just wait a few years or days and I'll be cringing). I have my new book shelves set up at my condo and I wanted to film a fun little video of me running around trying to figure out where things are! So enjoy, gosh darn it! And yes, I did get a massive haircut, thank you for noticing. Am I still as cringey as Minion memes? You betcha. Have my editing or filming skills gotten any better? No sir! Am I more confident when on camera? Ha... no. Do I say "but anyways" a million times in this video? Sure do. But I'm at it again folks! I'm going to try and do a bit more on my YouTube channel in this new year of 2021. I have a few ideas of videos that I would like to do (mainly ancient tags, tbh), and hopefully I'll be able to put videos out into the world that I won't look back on four years later and wince at. So we'll see how that goes... Since I recently moved into my own place and all of my books are currently boxed up, it may be a while before I get set up enough to do anything, but I've got the whole year. Plus, since I only made two videos this year and zero last year, it shouldn't be too difficult to make "more" videos. Hopefully. In the meantime, please enjoy this unboxing video! |
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