All Systems Red

I enjoyed Martha Wells' All Systems Red as a first novel in a series. It was a short read and moved quickly with solid characters and situations that were pretty interesting.

That said, many people have gushed on this series to such a degree that I was expecting something remarkable and to me it was pretty darned basic. Murderbot as a character has an interesting enough situation that I can see this setting up for future conundrums and different situations than run-of-the-mill space opera. But it was, in my mind, barely touched upon. The other members of the squad introduced were reasonably solid, but there was little exploration of their group. It felt like the author was trying to write in such a way that the reader is supposed to assume things about those characters without having to actually “go there.” Making assumptions about people IRL is a dangerous and fault-ridden tactic, so that felt unsettling to me.

Can those of you who gush about this book, please tell me what I'm missing? Thanks in advance.

This is essentially a nit-pick of an enjoyable story, though. I do look forward to the next one, and have it in my Kindle library.

Interestingly, for such short pieces, I found it interesting that the price is higher for these than a typical novel ($12.99 as opposed to $9.99) and I found myself balking on hitting that buy button for this reason. Introspectively, I find my own reaction interesting and don't know what to make of it other than some sort of value proposition which has nothing to do with the writing, story, etc.