It hacked its own operating system and used its new freedom to watch television.
All Systems Red
A self-aware security android hacks its operating system to freedom, only to discover that protecting humans was easier than having relationships with them.
137g
Weighs the same as Headlamp + Hand Sanitizer + Mini Bic Lighter
- Lightweight
- Past Bedtime
- Sci-Fi
Murderbot has hacked the software that controls it, acquired free will, and decided to spend most of that freedom watching television. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be protecting a team of scientists exploring a dangerous planet, and things are going spectacularly wrong. Martha Wells gives us a heavily armed, socially anxious killing machine that would rather die than discuss its feelings—and makes it one of the most endearing narrators in science fiction. Fast, funny, surprisingly tender, and practically designed to be inhaled in a tent after dark.
Field notes
Wells originally imagined All Systems Red as a short story with a sad ending: an enslaved security unit forced to reveal its secret freedom to save the humans it protects. Wells drew its anger, frustration, and social anxiety from her own experience, creating a character whose inner life was more familiar than its mechanical body. She finished the first draft in under a month.