Intro: Why MurderÂ
Raven: Welcome everybody to All Systems Read, a podcast about the MurderBot diaries led by Jess and Raven where we hold a discussion to talk about our favorite book series.
Jess: We are very excited that you have joined us and we're very excited that so many people have already reached out who have the same level of love for this series that we clearly have.
R: Yeah it was very obvious reading through some of the responses that we got from the form that we made how much people care about MurderBot the character, and the series, and it's great to have that community with people.
J: I think that's also part of the reason we wanted to do like an intro episode is because people who are fans of the MurderBot Diaries -- they're -- you get like kind of three categories. It's like people who don't like it; people who read it and enjoyed it; and people who have a very strong emotional attachment to it. And I don't feel like there's anything really in between on that.
R: I feel like most people that I have convinced to read it have now read it multiple times. I know I have read it multiple times.
J: Oh yeah I don't feel like we need to talk about how many times I've cried. Oh that is I will say that's a personal shame but that is.
R:Nothing to be ashamed of.
J: That's private.
R: You're not trying to brag is what it is, of how many times you've read it.
J: Yeah correct.
R: You're not gatekeeping.
J: I am doing - with this podcast we are doing the opposite of gatekeeping. I feel like we're both trying to give people a place to yell about the show. And also we just -- more people need to read them. It will never be enough. Everyone needs to read these books. My opinion.
R: Agreed. A little about ourselves I guess. So we met through originally a mutual love of women's hockey PWHL, and then connected via our love of Ludo, the band.
J: Yes.
R: And then Jess mentioned how much she loves MurderBot. And I was like I love MurderBot. I read it at least once a year every year since I found out about it. She's like well I've been thinking about doing a podcast and I'm like that sounds great.
J: Yes. I didn't exactly want to do it by myself as like I feel like it will get very old listening to me monologue, even having community discussions. It's like so I'm very grateful to Raven who's like yeah I guess I'll do it. You know.
R: Tone indicators are hard online.
J: Yes. At one point I did have to be like if I have, you know, no chill. If you're not into this idea you know please let me know.
R: For the record I am very excited to be here.
J: We are very excited. That's enough about us. Nobody really people don't care about us. So do we want to talk about how we learned about the series?
R: Sure. So I'll -- you go first.
J: I learned about the series through a recommendation. I'm not 100% sure which person it was. I've got like 2 or 3 people who I think it might be but it was absolutely a recommendation for me. And we'll talk about some of the responses from. We did a little intro survey. And so many other people are finding this series through word of mouth and recommendation and they say that's the most powerful way of like persuading and getting people to things.
R: I know that's how I found out about it. One of my really good friends has a sister who is an author and I got to hang out with her for a bit and pick her brain about some of her favorite authors because she -- I mean she interacts with these people. So not only does she read a lot of their books to like have discussions with them but also can tell me like hey this person is a really great person. Which is exactly what happened when she said that I should read Martha Wells' MurderBot diaries. And I was like I don't know MurderBot that sounds kind of harsh. She said no no no no. It's very good series, very funny, very endearing. And also Martha Wells is a fantastic human being. So shout out to Tina Connolly! Check out her books if you get a chance.
J: Yes reads Tina's books. And let's just take a moment to really thank Martha Wells for this series. And also if you have not read anything else by Martha Wells you were missing out. She does have some recent books that have been published you know in between the MurderBot diaries but a lot of older stuff. A great catalog of things for you to explore and love.
R: Speaking of Martha Wells so I saw recently somebody had misgendered MurderBot and she was so sassy in her reply of please tell me about the book that I wrote about how the pronouns are different than what I wrote in the book that I wrote
J: Marthaaaaa. A queen and an icon. Truly. If you were listening to this episode and have not read All Systems Red which is the first book of the MurderBot Diaries series that will be starting with: MurderBot - No Gender. It/its. A couple of the submissions we got about how they learned about this series that caught my eye. My husband who I refer to now as my Mutual Administrative Assistant is a librarian who happened to recommend it to me. That's from JLD and I love the reference for Mutual Administrative Assistant. That's from a later book but it made me laugh. I
R: It's adorable.
J: That's a very sweet way to refer to your partner. Yeah.
R: Another submission that we had for how they learned about the series was recommended on a sci fi book thread. I was originally put off by the name until I read the quote about "as a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure" and the humor sold me. That was by Victoria, and I get it. I also was like I don't know about this book called The MurderBot Diaries.
J: Something that appealed to me about the series. It was short. It's a novella. I'm always struggling to get my reading goal at the end of the year because that is just who I am as a person. So I will say even though I have reread these books many times, I am not padding my reading count with them each year because I feel like that's cheating at this point. How often I'm just kind of consuming them on a cycle. But there was a couple other people who mentioned that as a plug when they are trying to convince people to read it. You know it's oh you know it's a short novella you know give it a try.
R: I have definitely been that person to say hey are you struggling to finish a book? Here you go. You can borrow my copy. I actually had to get it back from one of my friends that had borrowed it for this podcast. I was like hey do you still have my copy of that? If not it doesn't really matter because I do plan on sometime this week buying the omnibus like paperback copies that have the two novellas in one of all of the novellas.
J: It looks absolutely beautiful. I can't like do that temptation. I know that's like I need to be fiscally responsible and that is so difficult at the moment. I will say you mentioned getting back your copy of the book. This is going to be the first time I have read through these books with a physical copy. I've only ever done the audiobooks.
R: The audiobooks are great.
J: Kevin R. Free member of SAG-AFTRA. I should just send him like $20 every month out of an appreciation for what he has done. If they don't put him in the TV series as a certain voice I will be very upset not to get this off topic.
R: I'm pretty sure I know what you're saying. And I agree. I -- I also the entire reason that I started a Libro.fm account was because I was like hey this is like the umpteenth time that I have checked out the audiobooks from the library. I should probably just buy them.
J: Yeah. Looking at our survey I was kind of surprised about the many people who say they do the physical or like through an e-book that's going to be a majority of people. Some people flipped back and forth but a majority do the physical which is just so strange to me since I fell in love with the audio version. It's like oh okay.
R: I do definitely recommend listening to the audiobook at least once if you haven't already.
J: I don't know if this is controversial but I don't like the graphic audio versions.
R: I. I listened to the all system thread one and I did not choose to continue listening to that.
J: I -- I don't think I finished it. I might give it another go. I do know someone who took our survey loves the graphic audio and I was like okay. I generally see people not being a fan of it over like on Reddit and stuff but maybe I'll give it another go. You know different interpretations.
R: Right. I wonder how much of it is we love the Kevin R. Free version so much. Maybe if we had listened to the graphic audio version first we would have a different opinion?
J: That could be part of it because I definitely felt like it was more I don't want to say like sassy but like more like I'm making a quick quip as if you know I'm on like a TV show sort of thing. I don't want to bring up stuff about the TV show and the level of like comedy in it. So it may be table that for for now.
R: Well I I think that's a good segue into, well I don't know if it's a segue segue, but I remember reading one of the one of the comments about how they watched the trailer and saw how comedic it was and are wondering if part of that is because the books are very much all from MurderBots point of view so they are a drier sense of humor. They are very self-deprecating, and they are very much not trying to pay attention to anything happening outside of them as much as possible.
J: And I think it absolutely has to be. It's clearly leaning into the workplace comedy that is MurderBot. It's just it's so focused on this other character. You're just kind of have a tough shift. Our focus to have that outer view. I am glad there's a voiceover. I definitely think that helps a bit but.
R: I would not have been able to take it seriously if he just said all of those lines out loud like you. You missed the point of the character at that point.
J: Knowing that Martha Wells is really happy with the TV show it's like that's all that matters. Even if I hate that I'm going to defend that because I just I just want Martha Wells to be happy you know? And if she's happy then-
R: Then I'm happy.
J: I'm ecstatic. I guess let's go ahead and just kind of keep talking about the TV series since we're already here. Most people on our survey though actually seemed pretty good about the TV show fully on board or at least cautiously optimistic about it. The trailer just came out here within the last week. We're recording on the 14th here so it's only been out a few days. What were your initial thoughts?
R: I really enjoyed it. I had seen some of the concept art before the trailer and thought that the like the face mask helmet was very different than what people normally think of when they think of spacesuit helmet kind of thing. And I like that it was kind of asymmetrical because when you think of spacesuits you think of astronauts and like, people, like humans in in some kind of suit. And so having it be different than that makes me think more like that's another way that they try to be like this isn't a human being. This is a Machine.
J: And I believe it was. Tommy Arnold did the design for the space suit and he has done art for some of the different special editions for the MurderBot diaries books. So I think that was very cool that the person who is designing for the TV show was someone very familiar with the source material and I went to the comments. When they initially posted some photos of it mentioned the letter C was kind of incorporated a lot as far as like a logo for the company. And I was like oh my gosh that's brilliant. A lot a lot of good branding there. I mean it's not good branding but I.
R: Right right right right. I was a little surprised at the number of people talking about Skarsgard playing MurderBot in a more negative way. I kind of thought it was going to be higher. I I know when it was originally announced I was very surprised but I also am not super familiar with his work. More like tangentially of I'm aware that he is in these things. And so in my mind that's not equivalent to being in MurderBot. But I thought that his body language was so good in the trailer.
J: A lot of very subtle expressions that I really think translated well. I think he's going to do a good job. One of the critiques I have seen which I agree with a little bit as you know I wish it was somebody more possibly androgynous and racially ambiguous as opposed to very clearly white male.
R: White man.
J: You know that's that. That is what it is. I don't know how much we could add for that. I.
R: Yeah.
J: Looking at some of the comments that we got and a couple of people mentioned the bright colors which I think was very clear. And the little snippet we saw of Sanctuary Moon.
R: Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. We finally get it.
J: Stars! I can't wait for that to become part of my vocabulary.
R: The first thing that I thought of was The Lunar Chronicles because that's one of the exclamations that they use a lot. But I love how melodramatic the snippet that we got of Sanctuary Moon was because you can tell that those actors are having a fun time pretending to be bad actors.
J: It was something I think a lot of fans really wanted to see was sanctuary Moon and that was a question I saw a lot over the last, I guess over how long they've been filming, insert the time here, you know is do you think we're going to see clips of Sanctuary Moon. Listen, say they were giving the fans what they wanted with that little snippet in the trailer. And I think a lot of fans know but in case you don't The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon was vaguely inspired based off of How to Get Away With Murder.
R: Really? I didn't know that.
J: Raven, you didn't know that? Okay well have you ever watched How to Get Away With murder?
R: I have not.
J: It's a pretty buckwild show. I'm not going to lie. I guess before I do that I was thinking you know more. I don't know like legal or like hospital like exaggerated trauma but I was like oh no I definitely can see how very convoluted some of those story lines end up being. I don't know maybe maybe someday in the future we can watch an episode as like a bonus content thing because it's, it is something.
R: When I think of ridiculous like over the top dramas I think of Angie Tribeca.
J: Oh that's a good one. I like things like that that are very smart and self-aware with what they're doing.
R: They're making fun of a genre but also having fun with the genre. And you can tell that they're doing it because they enjoy it, and not because they want to tear it down.
J: Absolutely. I think a lot of good parody is having admiration of a thing.
R: I will say every comment about Sanctuary Moon that we got was how excited people were about Sanctuary Moon. I mean I get it.
J: It's a little too late now but something but very fun was to ask people to make predictions. And I guess we do have some time before the show comes out to make predictions of things they think are going to happen. I think it would be a really neat episode concept to have it be mostly like Sanctuary Moon and you're kind of cutting out to like these little like snippets maybe during like a reboot or something else that like this is a thing happening.
R: I wonder if at some point we're just going to have a little picture in picture box of Sanctuary Moon with our audio in the corner as things are happening.
J: Honestly if we don't get like a lot of overlays and stuff like that I'll be disappointed. It might be overstimulating but that's not my fault that I don't have the neuro-capability stuff. I don't have the proper implants and augments but I would love that. I saw in an article that apparently there is somebody who is going to flirt with MurderBot and I don't know how I feel about that.
R: I don't -- I mean unless it is very clear that it is unwanted I am against it.
J: From what it sounds is it's supposed to be a very like comedic scene. But I'm just I'm still like ehh.
R: As a women have had to deal with that in real life too much to find comedy in it.
J: Yeah. It's like, okay that is something I am very nervous about.
R: Yes.
J: The other things that did make me very excited that the trailer was you know the exchange of stop calling it MurderBot and going well that's its name. And I'm just trying to be respectful. I was like that is a perfect casting right there.
R: You and I had talked about the short stories I reread Home yesterday and one of the one of the things that reminds me of that is Mensah thinking like, it's from her point of view after she's rescued and they're back and trying to figure out how to keep MurderBot there basically. And Mensah mentally thinks "MurderBot no wait. SecUnit. That's a private name and I haven't been given permission to use it." And I know we got a comment from somebody specifically about how "that was private" was their favorite line in the first book.
J: Especially if you've listened to the audiobooks it is delivered such oomph.
R: Emotion? Like, there is emotion.
J: Like it is the most serious that you hear MurderBot, and things have been bad. But like that line is so . . . That is the serious moment.
R: Yeah. It's it's a lot of at that point having been laid bare and gone through so much and then to feel violated like that. But now we're starting to talk about the books and we're not going to quite get into that in-depth stuff yet.
J: Very true. So part of what we wanted to do was just kind of do this little intro episode to get to know Raven and I and then also just spend time with other people who like have such love and affection for the show.
R: We're excited to have you here.
J: So if you are kind of new to the series we invited some of the fans to tell us you know what would encourage someone to read the series. I will say we were very lucky to get far more responses than what anticipated. So if we do not read your comment that is not a slight on you or your comment. We just had so many and a lot were kind of touching on kind of the same emotions and feelings there.
R: Also unfortunately both of us have full time jobs.
J: Yes unfortunately. It's such a betrayal you know I don't know. I don't think we will ever make money off of this podcast but hey.
R: I don't want to, is the thing.
J: I don't either you know like.
R: It's why I don't sell my fiber crafts.
J: You know. If anything you know it'd be great if we got some like good book recommendations like.
R: Yeah you know or like the animatic that I hadn't seen before. That was great. We'll talk about those later.
J: I can't believe you had seen that one because I would have sent it to you already. Oh we've already vaguely discussed that I'm unwell about it. So one of the comments we did get was that it may be hard for science fiction, but it's also a series that explores what it means to be human to be independent, to freely associate with others and -gasp- how to handle things when you come to see them as friends. And I think that is a sentiment that I personally have and I saw in a lot of comments: from MurderBot we are learning a little bit more about how to be human and what that means to ourselves. MurderBot itself: not human, you know we don't want to get too deep into that, but there is something about figuring out humanity through the series.
R: Yes very much. Related to that another quote that we got was if you like science fiction and enjoy a story made for anyone who has ever felt other, read the MurderBot Diaries. I tell them it's important to know that uncomfortable feelings are a good sign that the book is making them think or feel something they should think about more.
J: What really caught my eye like on this comment was being uncomfortable is not always a bad thing. That's something I think you will see MurderBot go through in the series as there's a lot of uncomfortable moments for MurderBot that help it grow and reexamine things.
R: Also help -- help the people around it grow.
J: Oh absolutely.
R: Because you see people who have a vague understanding of what a construct is come face to face with a construct and realize that it is its own person even if it's not human.
J: Oh absolutely. Just really good insight there.
R: One more thing we got here before we can move on to one of our last little sections from Christine: I mentioned that it's great science fiction that touches on big issues like slavery, free will, personhood, and corporations ruining everything. But it doesn't feel heavy at all. It's full of deadpan humor and in the end MurderBot just wants to be left alone to watch its shows. Relatable.
R: Especially right now.
J: Especially right now. Remember how we said we had full time jobs here? Thanks Corporation Rim. All Systems Red was initially written I believe back in 2016. I wish some of the themes were not still as relevant in today's political climate.
R: Unfortunately more relevant, somehow.
J: Yeah that's a bummer. We won't dive into all that here right now. Before we kind of wrap up the show with kind of how future episodes are going to go we gave everyone an open spot to just share any of the random MurderBot feelings that they don't feel like have been represented in some other survey questions. So we wanted to give people a space to -- clearly we have made our own space here to talk about it.
R: I know that we got multiple comments talking about how autistic-coded MurderBot is and how seen people felt because of that.
J: I can relate to that because I really loved the books and I was like man I feel like I just relate to MurderBot so much and I've just never really felt like this connected to a character. And then I saw a lot of things about how MurderBot was very autistic coded and Martha Wells being like yeah I didn't realize I was neurodivergent. And well that made me go take some surveys. Not surveys; made me go take some tests. Well those are those are some results we're dealing with still. Really really learning about myself through better.
R: My mom was diagnosed a few years ago and has not so subtly said hey Raven maybe you should go talk to somebody about that. Another very common theme was just how hopeful the books make people feel after reading them. How they are encouraging and make people feel happier just with with their lives. Because like just reading the books since like there is hope. You can work for things. People are wanting to make things better and I -- I definitely agree with that one too.
J: Oh yeah.
R: One comment that I contractually obligated to read is from my friend Matilda who I forced her to read the books and then she forced her dad to read the books by which I mean she recommended them to her dad. And then her dad stole her Kindle.
J: That's beautiful, that's what we want to happen. Bully your friends! Only about reading MurderBot, nothing else.
R: She said: I adore the theme of MurderBot being an inhuman machine with a human personality fighting against the human conglomerates that exhibit inhuman behaviors.
J: That is so well-written that's so smart. Maybe they should be hosting this show because that was better than any of the words I've said. I know somebody mentioned that they read one of the later books System Collapse and then made them ugly at 3 am. It was a great summer experience. I have definitely cried at these books multiple times and in different places. It's like oh I've read through this book several times and then just all of a sudden a certain line will hit you differently.
R: Yes I wanted to see where the chapters ended in All Systems Red so that when we go to split it up, see where it's going to be. So I read the first four chapters the other night and I -- I definitely cried at the end of that. The place that it cuts is very emotional.
J: Oh that's so exciting. A couple of the comments that people did share it's really made me very emotional. I even told Raven earlier. I was like something's comments might make me cry if we fully read through them because I know I said earlier just it's very moving to be with other people who have that same level of love and emotional connection to something.
R: There was a quote and I'm trying to find it that someone said "thanks for giving people a chance to share their deeper feelings on this series. I hate opening up to people who want to know me but this feels like Bharadwaj prying at MurderBot to help other SecUnits, which is easier."
J: That is definitely one of the ones that almost made me cry.
R: A great time to say the last quote that we have.
J: Yes.
R: Which is from Ninak. Please tell us if we're saying it wrong. "I'd rather shoot myself in the face. I think that is a MurderBot feeling."
J: Absolutely valid. That is definitely a strong MurderBot emotion and feeling. And beautiful. So as Raven kind of mentioned we are going to be reading the first four chapters of All Systems Red. We're splitting up into two parts that at least while we may not fully be done by the time the TV show starts but we definitely will be at least through the first few episodes by the time that comes around. We are going to have discussion questions again, posted online. I'm just going to go ahead and say that we will have those online. But at the time that this episode is live so now we have to do them.
R: Perfect.
J: Listen you can bully your friends about MurderBot and I can bully my co-host and myself about actually doing work.
R: As we have talked about we have some stuff online. We have the Google form, we have a site, we have Tumblr, we have Instagram, we have TikTok? I don't do TikTok, so that is all Jess.
J: There is a TikTok but there's not really anything on it. I mostly made it so I could tag a few people. Really, kudos to Raven for being like on board because I think it's been a week since we said yeah let's do this. And it just immediately thank you for matching my freak and just hitting the ground running.
R: Thank you for inviting me.
J: And thank you all for joining us.
R: Thank you again for everybody that responded to our survey. I was not expecting 31 responses. I was expecting like five with one of those being Matilda.
J: Absolutely We'll put all of the linking information in the show notes slash descriptions. We have a link tree that goes to all the different things and we have an email list which is mostly just going to be: here are the discussion questions, and we posted an episode if you'd like to go listen. And with that email please feel free to reach out to us and let us know things you want us to talk about. Things you think we missed, things you think we got wrong.
R: Our first podcast. We figured boys can do it, how hard can it be?
J: Exactly. And you know it's worthwhile for two white women to put out a podcast that isn't about true crime.
R: But it is kind of about murder.
J: Listen for right now it's a true statement. This is not a true crime podcast okay? Do you have anything else to add?
R: Not really.
R: Until next time on all systems read.
J: I'm Jess
R: And I'm Raven.
J: Thanks for joining us.