ALL SYSTEMS RED: Martha Wells: 1 (Murderbot Diaries)

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Knight in Sour Armor: A very cynical warrior that continues to fight for its people against whatever threatens them.

When you exist at the whim of the electorate, as people like me...disabled, unhomed, elderly, infirm...must do, you're a thing. A profit point. An expense center. Not yourself, not someone with a lifetime's issues and lessons. I'm fortunate that I live in a place that allows me to be as independent as possible, and that I did enough useful work for enough years that my (HUGELY reduced in value) investment in government debt affords me the relative safety of housing, medical care, and therapies that I need. Had I stayed in Texas, had I been darker of skin hue, had I not had the mind-bogglingly good fortune to have my breakdown while talking to the one person who could, and would, and did help me...well, I'd be dead, and that's just the facts.Dark and Troubled Past: Spent its entire past being used as a combat slave and treated as subhuman, culminating in it being traumatically forced to massacre a group of miners and then being memory wiped (possibly worse, being partially memory wiped). As to the writing itself, it alternates between engrossing, hilarious, heart-rending, and painfully accurate. You're going to identity with and relate to Murderbot so much that you'll find yourself (at least, if you're anything like me you will) also thinking of humans as an "other" during the course of your reading, as you mentally (or out-loud; no judgement if you're one of those people who exclaims aloud as you read; I rarely do, but this seems like an appropriate book series for that sort of behavior) shout at them to not do stupid things and just listen to their SecUnit, please! Will I read on? Of course. Will I ever generally know what is happening plot-wise and where things might be going? Of course not. And I'm good with that.

We see her cloaking her inner turmoil into outward mental steel. We see her immense gratitude to Murderbot — and it’s nice to see that intense loyalty goes both ways for these two. It feels unfinished. Just a small plot bunny with some editing mistakes. But it was nice. I liked it. Told from Mensah‘s POV, seeing Murderbot from the outside, but really struggling with her internal landscape after the events of the last novella. Unusual! For fans... Ridiculously Human Robot: Played with. SecUnits' and Bots' physical processes are quite different from humans' (no desires for things like food and sex), but Murderbot and ART both have rather human personalities and a great interest in human media. I've gifted copies of the first volume to five different people so far, and the only reason I haven't given it to more is because I'm just not that sociable as to be regularly exchanging gifts with all that many folks.)stars, rounding up (saving that half-star for eventual narration by Kevin R. Free; I can’t wait to hear his rendition of Murderbot/ART banter). Culture Clash: Encountering people from the Corporate Rim drastically shakes her worldview as she processes the sheer power of the corps and the very real threat they pose to her family. She's stunned by the fact that corporations would force them to pay out for a rescue and morally outraged that she'd have to claim to own Murderbot under those scnearios. It’s about being treated as a thing, isn’t it. Whether that thing is a hostage of conditional value, or a very expensively designed and equipped enslaved machine/organic intelligence. You’re a thing, and there is no safety.