A cyborg of metal and organic components, they only really want to spend their time watching soap operas and don't have a lot of interest in doing anything else.

If you don't mind the electronic version, they are pretty good prices though - usually just a few pounds / dollars.Īll Systems Red introduces us to Murderbot, a self-professed failure of design as a heartless killing machine and one of the funniest, most cynical, wonderful creations of recent times.

I think Tor.com need to rethink their pricing. This is coupled with the fact that I still like to buy real, genuine, paper versions of a book and I object to paying over £10 for something novella-length (150 pages) - some of the others in the series are £15. Only reason why I haven't reviewed any of these books so far, is that so many others have, and it becomes less needed to add my own voice to the busy crowd. Such independence was primarily sought so they could just watch soap operas all day, but they find themselves helping out pesky humans from being squished by other pesky humans, alien fauna and other security units. All Systems Red and the following three books in the series ( Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy) are novella-length stories about an AI construct security unit who call themselves 'Murderbot', hack their governor module (designed to make them follow orders) and gain independence. The series itself has also won the 2021 Hugo for best series. As I write this, the fifth book and first full-length novel in the Murderbot diaries, Network Effect, has won the Hugo award 2021 for best novel, already having won the Nebula and Locus.

Murderbot book