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Rate: 5/5

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Medium: Audiobook

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Overview (No Spoilers): 

I find I’ve been in a bit of a Sci-Fi slump. Despite a good friend highly recommending All Systems Red, it kept falling further and further down my reading list for well over a year. Even though this title had come available several times at the library, I never found the time to actually pick up this highly rated read. That all changed after watching the trailer for Apple TV’s upcoming adaption. I immediately cleared a spot at the top of my availability and utterly consumed this read in a day, wondering all along why I waited so long.

While All Systems Red is quite a short read, Wells develops this world and its characters quickly and with such richness, I hardly noticed the length. As a whole, All Systems Red has a much longer feel due to the depth and quality of the story. That said, the high stakes situations that these researchers find themselves trying to survive easily grips the reader’s attention. 

Wells forms this story around Murderbot, a security cyborg (SecUnit) who has hacked its governor to break the endless cycle of mindless order following that it had been programmed to do. As it was breaking a cardinal rule, there is an immediate element of danger injected into the story as the consequences for being caught were the loss of their freedom. 

As a sentient robot, I loved watching the cyborg’s personality grow, especially as they were put in uncomfortable social interactions. Terrified of being discovered, they come across as an introvert who has an amusing guilty pleasure of watching soap operas. 

This short story is so compelling due in part to the remote and isolated setting our researchers are currently exploring. As one of two separate corporate research units on opposite sides of the planet, help seems impossibly far away, especially as glitches start occurring frequently enough to become suspicious. I kept drawing parallels to the Expanse series, especially the book where a scientific team is exploring a new remote system. I was at the edge of my seat, dread mounting with every dangerous situation that was emerging for the Murderbot and the kind scientists.

Overall, Wells takes advantage of every word, sentence, and page by packing danger, suspense, and futuristic soap operas into this action packed race for survival. All Systems Red is easily one of my favorite reads of 2025 and will be my go to Sci-Fi recommendation for the near future. 

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Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound): 

• How many glitches have happened similar to other Murderbots where they killed the people they were supposed to be protecting?
• What other secrets does the company have?
• How will Murderbot live a normal life? Will he be hunted?
• What will happen to Dr. Mensah and her team?
• How many other cyborgs have hacked their system?

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