Review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Spoiler-Free)

On the entertainment feed, this is what they call an 'oh shit' moment. And this is what I call a delight. One of my favorite sci-fi tropes is "evil" AI. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Illuminae Files, I eat it up in all its forms. This book, however, is not really about an evil AI system, but rather, an indifferent one. Murderbot just wants to watch TV. It would rather hole up in its cubicle than ever have to interact with a human. And how could we fault it for that? Martha Wells manages to blend high stakes sci-fi with dry humor in a way that only a few writers have mastered. The novella format complements the tone nicely, though I'm excited to get to the full-length entries in this series as well.