July Discussion: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Hello podcast book club readers and listeners! This month, we are reading All Systems Red by Martha Wells.

This novella is the first of the a series called The Murderbot Diaries. And as usual, we would love to hear from you – what are your thoughts? You can comment below or answer any or all of the following questions:

1. Murderbot relies a lot on viewing entertainment media to cope with it’s boring and stressful situations. What’s your go-to movie or series when you want to de-stress?
2. Murderbot is explicitly not gendered in this story, but many readers find it difficult to picture a character without a gender. Did you imagine Murderbot as male or female, or something else? What kind of voice did Murderbot have in your head?
3. Is Murderbot a reliable narrator? Do we care?
4. Murderbot says at the beginning that it could have gone on a killing spree once it hacked its own governor module, but it didn’t. Why not? Was it just to escape detection?
5. All Systems Red is just under 150 pages long. Do you think a novella is long enough to create a whole world and tell a complete story?

You can always comment anonymously, or leave your name and we’ll give you a shout-out during the podcast!