Its most appealing feature is the narration of Murderbot itself: this misanthropic intelligence, created for the sole purpose of security and defence, is just getting rather fed up with the whole thing. Despite being a novella, All Systems Red creates a world as vivid, and characters as engaging, as those developed over the course of many a longer book. I’ve been hearing about Martha Wells’s Murderbot series for years: reviews have been consistently bubbly and enthusiastic, and now I can see why. All Systems Red raises the curtain on one of sci-fi’s most unexpected heroes. Unfortunately for SecUnit – or Murderbot, as it has christened itself – terrifying events are about to occur, which threaten the mission’s success, its humans’ lives and, depressingly, its longed-for isolation. All it wants is to be left alone: it has 35,000 hours of media content downloaded and just wants to find out what happens next on Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. But Martha Wells’s grumpy and antisocial AI has absolutely no interest in sabotage. Before you know it, we’d be on a one-way path to ‘Rotate the pod, please, HAL’, and Daisy, Daisy.

In many sci-fi stories, the alarm bells would already ringing. However, the scientists are blissfully unaware that their SecUnit has hacked its governing module and is now a rogue agent.

They are a small group, living cheek by jowl in a temporary habitat alongside their SecUnit – a humanoid AI formed from both mechanical and organic components, which has been programmed to protect them. On an isolated planet, a survey team carries out assessments to determine if it’s worth making a bid for this world’s resources.

All systems red series