Hailstones Murderthoughts: All Systems Red review
(For those who didn't see the post, I'm re-listening to the Murderbot books in anticipation of Platform Decay coming out NEXT WEEK!!)
Every time I come back to these books, different things stand out to me and I come away with more thoughts, more reflections, and more ideas about these characters. I so appreciate writing that rewards people for coming back time and time again.
Here are my All Systems Red thoughts after this week's listen-through, jotted down as I weeded my garden.
Okay, let's just start out by saying Martha is the master of the cold open. Every single murder bot book starts with a straight banger and ASR is absolutely no exception to this. “I could have become a mass murderer when I hacked my governor module”?
Absolutely brilliant.
This whole opening section is just a master class in very very efficient
world building.
Small thing, but I do think it's kind of funny. A little americanism. I’ve never heard anyone who actually uses the metric system refer to kilometers as kilos. Kilos usually refers to kilograms. I don't know why kilograms alone have earned that diminutive, but that's just how it is.
“They don't give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering…”
Immediately establishing that despite what we have just seen (Murderbot very effectively saving Bharadwaj) its usual use is for violence. And it doesn't know much about the world outside beyond its very explicitly stated purpose, and has probably been kept deliberately ignorant.
I know I've said it before but one of my absolute favourite moments of the TV show is having Ratthi going “well hellooo, who's this??”
It's such a good read on the scene, and since we're in Murderbot’s POV we have no evidence that this wasn't exactly what happened and it just Did Not Get It.
One of my early critiques of this book that I still stand by is the fact that none of the characters feel particularly distinct, aside from Murderbot and Mensah. Of course, having now read the rest of the series and gotten to know these characters well, I can obviously see their continuity. But in this book, they all just fade into a fairly homogenous background of “competent people helping make plot move.” But, fair enough, this is Murderbot’s story. Its relationship with Mensah is the most important development of this book, and the relationship with the rest of them comes later.
It's kind of downplayed in a few small moments throughout the book, but Murderbot does say that it has been enjoying this contract. Which gives more support to the idea that Murderbot really does like its job when said job is going well and it has autonomy. Jumping ahead to artificial condition, it's kind of an answer to Art’s question about whether it dislikes its function. Murderbot does like its function; its actual function. It doesn't like being used for violence, but it will use violence as a tool whenever necessary to protect its clients. That’s what it actually likes.
“... complaining about high prices for shitty equipment- I don't take it personally”
This is a very tongue in cheek way of reminding the audience that Murderbot is not a person, or at least is not considered to be so, by itself or by anyone else.
The quiet and careful threat of the autopilot cutting out… oughhhhh. Gets me every single time. (And yes the show having Mensah walk away from the controls DID annoy me)
“I don't do automated package updates anymore, now that I can help it.”
Man, doesn't that line carry so much weight with the ganaka pit backstory?? Even with murderbot not being 100% aware of what the hell happened with Ganaka, it just doesn't want to do that. God that hits hard.
And also the fact that if it hadn't hacked its governor module, it would have killed PresAux exactly the same way it killed its clients at Ganaka. Given what we know about Murderbot and how much it wants to protect people, this is such a gut punch for re-readers (Martha!! You are so cool and awesome!!)
(And also extending this logic - I wonder how the DeltFall units must have felt…)
Speaking of deltfall…
Murderbot's intense rage at the Secunits killing their clients. Deliberately acknowledging the smart thing, which would be just getting everyone the fuck out of there, and then deciding to kill the “rogue” secunits anyways. I wonder how much of this is latent rage at itself.
I will never stop wondering about the tech who accidentally downloaded the full specs that allowed MB figure out how to hack the govmod. Was it really an accident? Did that happen to any other units? Much to ponder. Much fodder for fic writers.
Genuinely, I am still kind of baffled by preservation’s rule about planetary leaders having to participate in their normal jobs. Like there's a reason that nowadays we don't let politicians hold on to their accounts and investments etc. while they're in office. And as we know, Mensah doing this survey made things a lot more complicated for EVERYONE, and made things way more expensive for preservation. Anyways, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I understand that it had to happen for plot reasons.
Also, I love how petty Murderbot is about Gurathin. Every time an opportunity comes up MB is just like “antisocial. Loser. Annoying. No bitches” and I love that for them.
The armor as a symbolic element at the end of the book is something I keep turning over and over in my head.
“Can I still have my armor”
“I’d have to leave the armor behind. But maybe I wouldn't need it anymore.”
The tension of going to preservation to be ostensibly free, but also completely unable to fulfill its function because its function wouldn't be NEEDED on preservation. I think that is a bigger part of the reason for leaving than a lot of people give it credit for.
End of book thoughts:
Every single time I come back to any of these books, I have a different takeaway. This time, I was just thinking about how much Ganaka Pit haunts the narrative in ways that maybe Martha didn't even realize at the time.
Murderbot's aversion to automatic downloads.
Murderbot's terror at the combat override module.
Murderbot's cold and calculated fury when it thinks the deltfall units went rogue and slaughtered their clients.
There's just so many quiet moments where you see how utterly devoted Murderbot is to it's job, and how much it likes keeping people safe, and how core a violation it is to have to act against that instinct, and how utterly destructive it is that MB keeps being forced into violence that it DOES NOT WANT TO DO.
Part 2: Artificial Condition