Martha Wells

I love Murderbot so much! It seems weird to call a book with so much violence "cozy", but there's something about the way that the human protagonists care for each other that just feels good, and I feel like at this point we can trust that Mensah's (SecUnit's?) family is going to be okay. Also, SecUnit is definitely growing as a person, but still has a distinct voice that I really love. Definitely an autistic-coded character, and I also love that. Anyway, this particular book: It's got a fun show more (ridiculous) setting full of asshole corporates and normal people just trying to get by. We get to see SecUnit and its friends working together, and SecUnit exploring the weird world of emotional awareness. It's fun! And I just want to give all the protagonists a big hug. show less

After the four prior novellas (to be fair, the last two really were full novels, if short ones), this fifth Murderbot Diary is about twice the length of any of the ones to precede it. The story makes for reading just as compulsive as the others. In many ways, this one is Artificial Condition 2.0, revisiting and expanding on the protagonist's relationship with the intimidating research starship AI who had been introduced in the second book.

The functional ways in which sf readers can identify show more with Murderbot really jumped out at me this time, even though most of them had been present through the earlier stories. In particular, the construct's appetite for "entertainment media" distractions (like mine for the book I was reading) and its ability to attend to coded inputs outside of direct sensory experience (like mine to the book I was reading) provide a vertiginous mirroring for the reader. The resonance of the Corporation Rim interstellar governance with US-imperial neoliberal nightmare was increasingly vivid, this time amplified with a focus on the dynamics of settler colonialism and its cruelty to the colonists, let alone any indigenes.

One interlude offered a little reflection on Murderbot's unwillingness to use the proper name of the bond company that originally owned (and presumably built) it. I have been wondering if a future book will include a revelation that explicitly identifies that malefic corporation with some actual 21st-century commercial or political entity.

There were a couple of clever twists, but the plot was pretty well determined and predictable prior to the action climax, which thus had a little premature feeling of denouement. Still, I did enjoy the book all the way to the end. As usual, the AI characters were better defined and more compelling than the humans, but as Murderbot has come to understand itself better, affections and motivations regarding humans in the story have become clearer and more interesting. The arc of the relationship between Murderbot and Mensah's daughter Amena was a highlight. show less

This first of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is a fast and engaging read. The tale is told by the eponymous "construct": a security unit android, something like a synthetic rent-a-cop for exoplanet missions. Murderbot has hacked its own governor module and become autonomous, and is mostly interested in consuming the Sanctuary Moon soap opera rather than doing assigned tasks. When a crisis arises to threaten the entire expedition, the self-hacked SecUnit exhibits surprising show more competencies while trying to conceal its liberated condition.

The best part of this book is the narrating voice of Murderbot, who is profoundly uncomfortable with social interaction, although fascinated by it, as demonstrated by the chosen diet of entertainment programming. Despite some difficulties, the humans of the crew have a much easier time treating Murderbot as a person than Murderbot does in behaving like one. A human describes Murderbot as "shy," but that radically understates the difference of the construct's perspective and alienation from human interaction. For all that, Murderbot's professed laziness and apathy are endearing, as is its resentment for the incompetence of the avaricious corporation that has leased it to the crew.

I read this longish novella in two sittings. It sets up a longer series, but fully completes a plot arc within this first story. show less

A short but infinitely engaging book. In this corporate-dominated futuristic dystopia, a cybernetic construct of cloned human bits and machine augmentations designed to protect people who rent it from the anonymous Company, called a SecUnit, refers to itself as “Murderbot”. (It/ Its pronouns used throughout the book, as expressly stated, it has no gender or any organic sexual reproductive organs or systems).
We get to read Murderbot's inner thoughts, and experience their reluctance to show more communicate with most humans, and its obsession with watching human media programs. This is a different sort of Murderbot though, as it actually doesn't WANT to kill any humans, but some sort of malfunction or sabotage caused it to rampage and kill dozens, before it's memory banks were partially wiped. Now with a hacked module, allowing it to have almost free autonomy over itself, it still does the job it was hired to do, but with a difference, It tries to stay under the radar, not letting on that its hacked itself, It likes to follow its own rules and often disregards the humans orders in favor of common sense, revealing a sarcastic and awkward personality. I really enjoyed this book as it was reminiscent of a few episodes of Doctor Who, which has always been a favorite of mine. show less