My book club introduced me to The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Her website indicates she is a NYT bestselling author, and believe me, she deserves it.
An example – after reading All Systems Red, my book club talked about it, as one does with book clubs, and half of us (I think there were eight in attendance that night) assigned the “she” pronoun to the main character – the self-named Murderbot and the other half referred to the Murderbot with the “he” pronoun set. The result made me go looking during the meeting, because my editing brain went a little bonkers – how could anyone, let alone a bunch of women and man (singular) I respect as excellent readers, get the pronouns wrong?
Um, Murderbot never uses a gendered pronoun to refer to themselves. And everyone else refers to the SecUnit cyborg as an “it.” Sooooo. There is that. Takes some serious writing skill to have a main character without a gender AND HAVE NO ONE NOTICE THAT NO GENDER IS INDICATED. I mean, that is some mad skills. The book club conversation then turned to WHY did each person decide the gender was male or female. That told us more about ourselves, our assumptions, and our reading habits than about the book, but was very interesting.
The whole series is well-written, with amazing worldbuilding. I consistently give it five stars on Goodreads as well as Amazon and BookBud.
Bonus: Autistic-coded; asexual; non-gender being.
The Murderbot Diaries series
- All Systems Red
- Artificial Condition
- Rogue Protocol
- Exit Strategy
- Network Effect
- Fugitive Telemetry (A Novella flashback)
- System Collapse – Immediately follows Network Effect and the first book that does not work as a stand alone. You must read #5 first.
extra short story: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory: A Tor.com Original Murderbot Diaries Short Story. (Link leads to the free on-line short story printed at tor.com – April 19, 2021) Set before Fugitive Telemetry
extra short short: Compulsory – appeared in Wired Magazine, January 2019, set before All Systems Red (NOT REVIEWED)
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ALL SYSTEMS RED
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller; Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella; Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella; Winner: 2018 Alex Award; Winner: 2018 Locus Award; One of the Verge’s Best Books of 2017
A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.
“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”
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.
MY REVIEW for ALL SYSTEMS RED
A wonderful novella about Murderbot (self-named), an android contracted to protect a group of scientists investigating a world for possible purchase for resources and colonization. His group is one of two on the planet. Typical of most corporation-lowest-bidder situations, things break, … a lot of things break at inopportune times. Except, is this job just typical breakage?
Murderbot usually doesn’t care. He is just a contracted construct – self-aware, sure, but who has time to go become a murderous robot or obedient automaton when the entertainment channel is so good? But if his present humans all die, he will get investigated and might get cut off from his soaps.
A fun romp.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ARTIFICIAL CONDITION
It has a dark past—one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.
Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.
What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…
MY REVIEW for ARTIFICIAL CONDITION
Another fun quick entry in the Murderbot Diaries. Finally free-free, Murderbot decides to investigate one of the black holes of his memory wipes.
The first book is a teenager getting cranky about being pulled away from his media entertainment. But also discovering not every family is dysfunctional. The second is his first time away from home / supervision. Basically Murderbot is learning about adulting. He has to figure out how to make friends (ART) – BTW ART is a great first friend who is both vastly better at some things and not-so-much at others – they make a good mix. Get to places instead of his owners/renters taking him there. Have a job because he wants/needs it instead of just chores & duties. And discovering even when adults get answers to their questions, they aren’t always satisfying.
A good second part of a coming-of-age series. I think that is the theme of the series – watching Murderbot going for teenage sentience-awareness to an adulter-adult.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ROGUE PROTOCOL
Starring a human-like android who keeps getting sucked back into adventure after adventure, though it just wants to be left alone, away from humanity and small talk.
Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas?
Sci-fi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit is.
And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.
MY REVIEW for ROGUE PROTOCOL
At the end of book 2, Murderbot left the site of their defining birth and chosen name by making friends with a Transport a LOT dumber than ART. (Which is practically every bot in existence, and I pretty sure Murderbot will like never to meet anything SMARTER than ART.)
(Oh, by the way, my book club finished their discussion of Murderbot #1 and I was referring to Murderbot as “he” and someone else a “she” – so that ended up part of the discussion … and then I had to go looking. Ms. Wells has done an INCREDIBLE job of keeping the android gender neutral. Not once is gender stated or implied in books one or two. Ms. Wells has done this TIGHT.)
Anyway, onto book 3. The Transport out roped Murderbot into being a security consultant again – keeping a bunch of tense people in line. Reading the internal commentary of the android is worth the price of admission. Murderbot has no patience with bickering beings cutting into their screen time.
Once they escape that nightmare of social interaction (for a shy, introverted killing machine) upon arrival at a spaceport, Murderbot goes on to investigate another site of where GrayCris may have done things out-of-line, even by corporate standards.
They follow some humans to what should have been a terraforming station, using them to gain access to the remote platform. GrayCris has been a bad boi, and the corporation doesn’t want to leave any evidence behind. Can Murderbot do what it does second best and save the people?
A fun novella that keeps you guessing.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for EXIT STRATEGY
Murderbot wasn’t programmed to care. So, its decision to help the only human who ever showed it respect must be a system glitch, right?
Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah—its former owner (protector? friend?)—submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit.
But who’s going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue?
And what will become of it when it’s caught?
MY REVIEW for EXIT STRATEGY
The fourth novella installment of the Murderbot Diaries has our favorite entertainment-feed loving android discovering GrayCris has kidnapped the doctor who had freed it.
There are certain things one should not do – Most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is don’t mess with Murderbot’s humans. (Well, okay, this is completely unknown at this time … but boy-o-boy is it one of the certain things corporations should NOT do).
While Murderbot is not happy about going into the heart of corporation territory, the corporations will be even less happy unless them give it back its human.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for NETWORK EFFECT
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
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I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Drastic action it is, then.
MY REVIEW for NETWORK EFFECT
Fifth installment of the Murderbot diaries is a full novel, giving time for a complex story to develop. ART returns, and he continues to live up to the name our favorite entertainment-feed-addicted android gave him – stealing some of Murderbots favorite people.
A story unfolds of old colony tragedy, overly optimistic second attempts, and cooperate greed. Murderbot has to fight on a variety of platforms while unearthing what mistakes humans had committed yet again. Action packed fun ensues.
Oh, and Murderbot and ART may have made a baby.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for FUGITIVE TELEMETRY
Having captured the hearts of readers across the globe (Annalee Newitz says it’s “one of the most humane portraits of a nonhuman I’ve ever read”) Murderbot has also established Martha Wells as one of the great SF writers of today.
No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.
When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)
Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!
Again!
MY REVIEW for FUGITIVE TELEMETRY
After the long novel (Network Effect), Fugitive Telemetry returns to the quick novella format of the other Murderbot Diaries. This time the mystery is an actual murder and our favorite entertainment-feed loving android has to work with human security instead of running rings around them.
The problem is the murderer seems to be able to run rings around Murderbot.
Is it a corporate villain, or something even worse?
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for SYSTEM COLLAPSE
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!
Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.
MY REVIEW for SYSTEM COLLAPSE
Unlike most of this series, System Collapse (book 7) does NOT work as a stand-alone. You should at least read book 5 of the series, Network Effect. (Note book 6 – Fugitive Telemetry is a novella stand-alone flashback.) I read book 5 about 10 months ago and struggled.
That said, another excellent addition to the Murderbot series. Our snarky hero continues to grow in maturity, basically teenage level now with pouts and shutdown and continue struggles with “why are supposedly emotionally mature sentients like this?” It has taken over observing and assisting with the emotional growth of those who are “younger” than it. I adore watching the SecUnit change over time and take on new skills outside of being a construct built to Secure & Protect.
The specific story for this one mixes politics and exploration, at least for Murderbot’s humans. It has to keep them safe while they do unsafe things.
If you are unsure about whether this series is a good fit for you, check out the bookquotes.
Checked out through the local library. Support Libraries!
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So one of the other reviewers say that Murderbot now reads as a teenager and that was bad.
I think it is great. It shows maturity. I would place it about 13 or 14 – still respecting some adults it has grown to trust, liking people for their own sake, growing its personal circle of friends, but also melting down and needing prodding because the brain is just … braining.
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for HOME (SHORT STORY)
“Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” is a short story set in the world of Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries. This story was originally given free to readers who pre-ordered Network Effect, the fifth entry in the series. The events of “Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” occur just after the fourth novella, Exit Strategy.
MY REVIEW for HOME (SHORT STORY)
More a vignette or character exploration than a short story, Home is told from Mensah’s POV between stories 4 and 5.
Very little new information is brought to the table – you don’t need to read this. But I do like discovering how Murderbot and Mensah interact, tease, and support each other from the human standpoint.