Martha Wells : All systems red - The Murderbot diaries #1

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.

 

 

 

For 2021, new addiction started ? Check ! I need the rest of this series. I'll be reading one per month next year, I already scheduled them in my reading plan.

Everybody has read the series, everybody knew about it, except me until a few months ago, when I learned about it through a YT video by Wiebke at 1book1review (love her channel, by the way). She was so enthusiastic about it that I bought the first instalment and I finally read it this week.

I love the Murderbot ! It's a name he gave himself because our security android unit has a murdering past : even if he's not a war robot, he has killed a good 50 humans that he was supposed to protect, so his circuits have been wiped out and reinstalled (he's too expensive to simply destroy). Now, he has been contracted to work with a team of scientists and strange things begin to happen on that planet.

Our Murderbot is socially awkward, he hates interfering with humans and avoids it as much as he can. When he has to, and people begin to treat him with more consideration than he's supposed to get, his defect mode is to look the other way and watch hours and hours of serials that he downloaded into his memory. Oh yes, he also hacked his program to become more or less independant - without people knowing it. He's funny and sarcastic and a joy to read about. I definitely recommend it and with proceed happily to read the rest of the series - the new instalment (book #6) will be published next year.