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  • All Systems Red

  • By: Martha Wells
  • Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
  • Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,029 ratings)

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All Systems Red cover art

All Systems Red

By: Martha Wells
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
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Publisher's Summary

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.

All Systems Red tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid - a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot."

Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

©2017 Martha Wells (P)2017 Recorded Books

What listeners say about All Systems Red

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

interesting and occasionally quite funny

interesting tale of a robot-human hybrid. I wanted more exposition of its nature, but enjoyable.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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So Good

Every now and then a book comes along that blows your mind. I know it's short but it makes up for it in awesomeness. It's so rare to find a good first person perspective narrator, such an amazingly unique voice. I tip my hat to you, you have done something that I didn't believe was possible 👏

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great little Novella

Loved the main character construct and the plot. Well-written, too. Narration quite good, although it was sometimes a little difficult to distinguish between spoken dialogue and internal thoughts. That didn't spoil it for me, though.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic

Easy listening, great story. Well narrated. I’ve come at this from Network Effect and regret nothing, looking forward to the rest.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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A very engaging listen

an interesting perspective. the narrator's voices were not different enough at times, it was difficult to seperate characters.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic

Absolutely loved this. Narrator was soo good too. Loved the murderbot who just wants to be left alone to binge watch TV, I mean same

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Very entertaining

Really enjoyed this short story. Well written and read. Looking forward to the next installment

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Amazingly good

The Murderbot series is brilliant. Wonderful character development, an enthralling narrative and an excellent narration combine to make an amazingly good experience.

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Entertaining

My first sci fi and extremely enjoyable. Fast moving and credible for what might be down the line

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  • M
  • 31-07-2023

❤️ Murderbot

Who knew it would be so good reading about a bored, anxious, depressed construct/bot!

Took me a bit to get used to Kevin R Free after reading hard copy for so long, but he certainly made the role his own.

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