Exit Strategy

Exit Strategy effectively serves as final act in the initial Murderbot story arc. SecUnit decides the only chance for Mensah is a hostage rescue, and the plot is propelled along from the opening, though as usual SecUnit's narration is seemingly calm and unpanicked even through the most harrowing action scenes. While new characters appear, several major characters from the initial novella return.

Though the novella wraps up the overall story arc of the Diaries so far, it does so without fully addressing all questions about SecUnit's identity or past. While SecUnit's guilt and overall self-consciousness are accounted for, it remains hazy just how it hacked its governor module.

That she understood even that much made me melt. I hate that show more this happens, it makes me feel vulnerable. Maybe that was why I had been nervous about meeting Mensah again, and not all the other dumb reasons I had come up with. I hadn't been afraid that she wasn't my friend, I had been afraid that she was, and what it did to me. [116]

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Along with plot and plot-adjacent revelations, a deeper understanding of both SecUnit's world and its Self become possible.

● The story reinforces prior established facets of AI slavery, and elaborates that constructs were not always treated as chattel -- somehow their treatment evolved from a prior state (in which SecUnits were known as Augmented Rovers), after which time both their abilities and their treatment by humans changed. Notably, this mirrors the history of slavery in the U.S., evolving from indentured servitude (largely agnostic of racial conceptualisations) to slavery expressly undertaken in defense of White Supremacy. (See short story "Obsolescence" for possible background on the Rovers.)

● A new aspect of SecUnit's individuated Self is revealed when it defends against a virtual attack. Until now, SecUnit's hacking of security systems was accomplished entirely as an embodied construct, analogous to a human hacker via digital interface. This scenario, by contrast, involves SecUnit wielding offensive and defensive measures strictly as a digital entity. (These skills anticipate later plot developments in the next Diaries installment, Network Effect.)

One question is conspicuous for remaining unaddressed: SecUnit's consistent decision never to name the bond company which owned it, and which provided the underwriting for Preservation Aux's planetary survey in the first novella. There are repeated and pointed conversations featuring that entity, but these refer only generically to "the company". Repeatedly declining to name it becomes a deliberate act on the part of SecUnit, even to the point of remarking its logo yet never its name. [37] Notably, several other corporate entities are named throughout the series (but ... never another bond company?). [43] The cumulative result is to suggest that bond companies are distinct, perhaps for being the equivalent of slavers. (This is another aspect of the Diaries not addressed explicitly until the next installment.) show less

As I had hoped, the fourth Murderbot Diaries volume did break the hardening pattern of the previous books. It is not a matter of the SecUnit adopting a new "family" and protecting them from malefactors. Instead, it concerns Murderbot taking up unresolved relations with humans it knew before, and trying to address a crisis it knows itself to have helped create in the first place.

"Possibly I was overthinking this. I do that; it's the anxiety that comes with being a part-organic murderbot. The upside was paranoid attention to detail. The downside was also paranoid attention to detail." (14)

Although it was a little bit longer than the earlier books, it read even faster, and I basically tore through this one in a single, lightly-interrupted show more sitting. show less

"The Murderbot Diaries" are really a single novel that the publishers have released as four novellas. This would have been fine except each novella was priced as if it were a full novel, leaving me feeling abused by the publisher.

The reason I LET myself be abused is that "The Murderbot Diaries" are first-rate science fiction. They're fun, ingenious, fast-paced and plausible.

Murderbot is a wonderful creation. Its development over the course of the four novellas from a Security Unit that has hacked its own governor module so it can spend more time watching space soap-operas into a person with feelings, a strong sense of identity and a determination to stay independent is irresistibly attractive.

I read the fourth novella the same day that show more my pre-order dropped into my Audible library and I was gratified to find that the quality remained high and that the resolution was as plausible and original as the premise itself.

I won't go into the plot here other than to say that it brought together all the plot pieces from the previous novellas and used them to push Murderbot's development along by making it choose what to do about the mess "his" humans had gotten themselves into.

Although this final novella does what it's supposed to do and gives a resolution to the struggle with the big bad Corporates, it seemed to me that the main focus was on Murderbot working out what it wants to be. In the third novella "Rogue Protocol" Murderbot met what he thought of as a "pet robot". The sacrifices that robot made and the emotional attachment that the humans showed to it have both given Murderbot something to think about. He knows he doesn't want to be a pet. He also knows that watching media is no longer enough for him. Its still embarrassed and annoyed by the emotions it keeps feeling but has recognised them as an integral part of its personality.

I liked the fact that Murderbot rejects the Pinnochio option. It doesn't want to be a "real boy". In the end, what it wants is to have the freedom to be Murderbot.

Martha Wells has created something very special here. I hope there are more Murderbot books, just because I'm greedy for its company, but I'd be satisfied if this is all I ever know about Murderbot because it was a great ride in good company.

Of course, if there are more Murderbot books, I'd rather not have to buy them in four slices and end up paying four times the price. Did I mention that already? show less

Fourth book in the Murderbot series, this story makes connections among the first three books. In this installment, the protagonist SEC Unit reconnects with Dr. Mensah, from book one. Mensah has been abducted by GrayCris Corporation and the SEC Unit must figure out how to rescue her. The SEC Unit is moving along the continuum toward artificial intelligence until it borders on human, though it still resists embracing any human emotions.

I really love the SEC Unit as a main character, with its logic, sardonic sense of humor, and desire to protect humans. As is typical in this series, the first half develops the characters and catches readers up on the backstory, and the second becomes a sequence of action scenes. GrayCris continues its show more role as villain. For me, the development of the SEC Unit’s character is the reason I continue to read these diaries even though I am not typically a reader of books in a series. show less

It’s got attitude … SecUnits are never allowed to sit down or use human furniture whether on or off duty, so I sat in one of the chairs and put my feet up on the table. ... not to mention emotions ... I was having an emotion, and I hate that. I’d rather have nice safe emotions about shows on the entertainment media; having them about things real-life humans said and did just led to stupid decisions. And just why does it like watching media so much? Huh, why did I like Sanctuary Moon so much? I had to pull the memory from my archive, and what I saw there startled me. “It’s the first one I saw. When I hacked my governor module and picked up the entertainment feed. It made me feel like a person. Oh Murderbot, you’re breaking show more my heart.

This was a fantastic conclusion to the Murderbot Diaries first story arc and I’m SO glad the series doesn't end here. show less

If only humans, at least the ones it cared about, didn’t keep getting in disastrous situations requiring Murderbot to come rescue them. Dr. Mensah has been kidnapped by GrayCris and her three companions are quickly discovering that negotiations over her release aren’t going to go well. Fortunately, Murderbot is on the case. Of course, with the levels of security and outright firepower on TranRollinHyfa, it was never going to be a walk in the park.

Martha Wells presents a rollicking rescue scenario that pushes Murderbot to its limits (and possibly beyond). But she also re-establishes the bond between Murderbot and Dr. Mensah. So it’s not all just energy and projectile weapons and code for hacking systems. There is also a fair bit of show more thinking about what it means to be Murderbot when you’re Murderbot. And that’s what lifts the adventure to higher heights.
Thought-provoking and sentimental but packed in a case of high-octane action. As ever, I can’t wait for the next instalment.

Recommended. show less

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells may be, on the surface, adventure novels, shoot-'em-ups in space. Yet what makes them so compelling is that the Murderbot in question is mostly a robot, yet partly a human being. He (or is it it?) can even pass as human, even though he doesn't need to eat or sleep. He calls himself a Murderbot because he was designed to protect people, usually by killing other people.

By deactivating his governor early in the series, he became a free agent. He follows no orders and can spend all his time watching the videos he has downloaded into himself, which is what he says he wants to do. Yet he confesses in “Exit Strategy” (2018), the fourth book in the series, that watching all that media has made him "feel show more like a person."

What's more, he may actually be in love with Dr. Mensah, his former owner. Now on his own, he sets out to rescue Dr. Mensah from an evil corporation holding her for ransom.

Wells throws in enough imagined scientific jargon of the far future to satisfy any geek, but the Murderbot's shred of humanity is always what drives these novels. This one may not be one of the best in the series, but it is still impossible not to love Murderbot at least as much as he may, or may not, love Dr. Mensah. show less