This will be a short review because my week is stacked with insanity before everyone checks out for Christmas week.

 All Systems Red, the first in The Murderbot Diaries series, is a must-read novella for every science fiction fan. It’s a quick read full of wit and action. I can’t wait to start the second book this weekend.

 Murderbot is a robot, one of many, created and leased out by a company that specializes in security and defense. Murderbot is a security bot and he’s not really a robot at all. He’s a cyborg, part machine and part cloned human, which means he has consciousness. Each cyborg has a governor which allows it to be controlled by humans, but this particular “SecUnit” has hacked its governor so that he can be autonomous. He then names himself Murderbot because its primary function is to murder. However, instead of murdering all the humans he just keeps doing what they tell him to do while spending its time watching “serials” which I think are the future soap operas. Then all hell breaks loose when something tries to kill the team he has been leased to and our boy Murderbot gets to work.

 This book is short. The humor and action will make you keep turning pages so you’ll probably knock it out in a day. I definitely recommend this book to all my fellow nerds out there.