Murderbot Diaries 1-3

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, and Rogue Protocol

by Martha Wells

Overall: Well, this is what happens when you hang out in online book communities. You end up trying a series that you’ve seen featured a million times on your library app feed, and you love it! Murderbot, the main character of these three quick novellas, is what I imagine would result if you combined John McClane from Die Hard with Data, the android from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and added a subroutine for sarcasm that was turned up to 11. All Murderbot really wants to do in this dystopian future is hang out and consume “media,” especially soapy tv shows about humans like its favorite, Sanctuary Moon. In the first book, however, Murderbot has been contracted by the corporation that owns it to protect a group of humans surveying a distant planet. It almost gets eaten by a giant critter (think sandworm from Dune), and the mission goes downhill from there. Murderbot’s adventures continue as it hops between systems and adventures worthy of noir-era detectives Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe.

Likes: I frequently laughed out loud while listening to these, startling my cats. Actually, cackled is probably a better description. But I’m not just in it for the sarcastic humor. (Okay, I’m 60 % in it for the sarcastic humor.) Murderbot’s evolving understanding that not all humans are evil overlords who could care less about its fate, and the relationships it develops with other intelligent “bots” with emotions, including A.R.T. and Miki, give these books the kind of heart Murderbot itself would scoff at. Each novella has a small mystery, and then there’s a couple of larger, overarching mysteries that connect the stories; all of them kept me entertained and listening whenever I could.

Dislikes: The only dislike I had is that all three novellas are very short, and I am a greedy human reader who wants more. Fortunately, there are three more books in this series for me to read, including a full-length novel. Time to go consume some media!

FYI: profanity, violence, murder. Many bots are in a status equivalent to slavery.