All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries Review
2 min readWith a title like Murderbot, I was expecting this:
It was the exact opposite of that.
What I liked:
- This book is pretty funny. The humor is my type of droll humor I enjoy. I laughed out loud more than a few times.
- Especially now we can all relate to just wanting to be left alone and those awkward social situations we all find ourselves in.
- The technology and world are intriguing.
- The story builds anticipation and it’s fun hearing the characters trying to solve their problems.
- It’s a short read – perfect for a palate cleanser.
What I didn’t like:
- I didn’t really care about the characters, and I would have liked more information about what they do.
- As interesting the world and the technology in the story are, I would have liked more information on how it works.
- The climax was a bit of a let down for me.
- If we’re talking about bang for your buck, it’s 160 pages for a little over $13 bucks on Amazon. The hardcover MSRP is $18.
Conclusion and rating:
Murderbot is a funny, short read. I didn’t think it was a great book, but it wasn’t bad either. The climax being a letdown brought my score down a little. With this being a 6 part series and such a short book, the lack of character development and information may be on purpose. Maybe this isn’t the purpose of this book, and it’s not setting out to be a sprawling epic, instead it intends on being a fun fast read. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I would also like to mention that the cost for a novella of this size is pretty ridiculous at over $20 at the time I bought it. It’s now available on Kindle Unlimited, so that helps.