Genre: Science Fiction

Story Type: Novella

First Published:  2017 by  TOR.com

Awards: Nebula Award 2017 for Best Novella; Hugo Award 2018 for Best Novella

Science Fiction covers a broad spectrum and Martha Wells’ novella, All Systems Red, lies at the “Space Opera” end, with an overlap to Military SciFi.

Just so you know what I mean by “space opera”, to me it means adventurous (or even swashbuckling) stories set in futuristic or “alternative universe” space settings, where the emphasis is more on the adventure, fun science, and character interactions, rather than the more rigorous scientific realism of “Hard SciFi.” Devices such as faster than light (FTL) travel and wormholes/space gates are important devices that help make space opera work.

I believe All Systems Red ticks all the space opera boxes, in that it’s adventurous, set in “far space” within a space-based, future human culture, and the central character is definitely fun—but I’ll come to that in a minute. In addition to having overlaps to military SciFi (also to be explained shortly) it’s also what I would call “Corporate Culture” SciFi, i.e. in this version of the space future an awful lot of stuff is run by corporations.

So-o, what’s it about? Firstly, All Systems Red is a novella, which means that the story is single-focus—which works well with a First Person Singular (FPS) narrator—and relatively straightforward. The FPS narrator, aka “I”, is a self-aware security (“SecUnit”) robot of combined biological and mechanical construction, which refers to itself as Murderbot. The alleged overlap to Military SciFi (in my mind) is because Murderbot is a security specialist and gets to fight things and fire big weapons when the chips are down.

And of course the chips are down within the course of the story, because did I not say that space opera is all about adventure?! (I did say so: yes, indeed!) The basic story goes like this: Murderbot is the SecUnit assigned to a scientific mission surveying an uninhabited planet. Early in the story the mission gets attacked by endemic fauna and Murderbot and the team discover gaps in their maps and information. Shortly after that, they realize that someone or something (beyond the endemic fauna) is trying to kill them: cue the adventure, complete with alarms, excursions, and Murderbot action.

In this sense, the story is (as I said earlier) very straightforward space opera. The aspect that makes the story so enjoyable is the character of Murderbot, whose really not that murderous and likes to watch TV serials (soap opera style) during any available downtime.  An important part of Murderbot’s story arc is his developing realtionship with the human characters, particularly the mission leader, Dr Mensah.

I’m not going to say any more about the plot, because being only novella length it would be easy to spoil the story for you. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed it: All Systems Red is a fun, light read with a genuinely engaging main character and interesting supporting cast.

If you’ve enjoyed novels such as CJ Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, Ann Leckie’s  Ancillary Justice, or Peter F Hamilton’s Fallen Dragon, I’m “pretty sure” you’ll enjoy All Systems Red.

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Disclosure: I purchased my reading copy of All Systems Red from a local independent book shop, Scorpio Books. And yes, it “is” a keeper. 🙂