The Murderbot Diaries is a series of scifi novellas. Since they’re so short, I don’t have enough opinions for a full review of each of them. But they’re good enough that I want them to have their own post. So I’m trying something new – a Review Shorts post not for a particular month, but for a series.
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
See the series on The StoryGraph here
- All Sytems Red
- Artifical Condition
- Rogue Protocol
- Exit Strategy
- Network Effect
- Fugitive Telemetry
- System Collapse (2023)
General spoiler warning: Though I try to avoid it, there is a high likelihood that each of these review shorts will contain spilers of the previous books.
Book #1: All Systems Red
Completed November 2022
This story was entertaining, irreverant, and a good time all around. I loved “Murderbot” and I really enjoyed the crew it was placed with and its dynamics. I especially enjoyed how Murderbot isn’t legally considered a person and doesn’t want to be considered one – it was an interesting idea. I also appreciated the way the crew insisted on treating it like a person even though that made it very uncomfortable. The plot itself was interesting, too – a capitalist hellscape universe, an interesting uninhabited planet setting, and a mystery to solve. It worked perfectly fine as a novella, but it could have easily been much longer, and I wish it was. I would have enjoyed spending a significantly longer time in this story with these characters unraveling this mystery. It’s kinda like how once you eat one potato chip you want to eat the whole bag – now that I’ve read this book, I want to devour the entire series.
Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, violence, injury (severe), body horror, murder, mind control
Book #2: Artificial Condition
Completed November 2022
Like the first book in the series, this one was entertaining but way too short. Murderbot spent most of this one passing as human, which was fantastic. I found its attempts to figure out how to interact with people and act like a human amusing and remarkably relatable. (Also, watching Murderbot attempt to do an actual job interview was hilarious.) The human side characters were pretty good too. Murderbot’s goal this book is to get answers about its past – and it did, but the answers felt anticlimactic. Either there’s going to be more to it or the answers aren’t a huge part of whatever Murderbot is looking for. It’s on a journey looking for something, but it’s not really sure what yet (and honestly that’s pretty relatable too), and that made this whole book feel less like a self-contained story and more like one section of a larger book. It’s not like All Systems Red where it definitely could have been expanded – it was exactly as long as it needed to be, it just felt incomplete. Perhaps I should be reading this like a novel released in parts than as individual novellas? Regardless, I enjoyed it and I’m excited to keep reading this series.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, violence, injury, kidnapping (mentions), mind control, medical content, guns
Book #3: Rogue Protocol
Completed November 2022
I love Murderbot so much. It’s so done with all of this bullshit and just wants to consume media in peace, but it keeps having to go save idiot humans from their own bad decisions. Murderbot’s strong narrative voice made for a fascinating mood in this book. By all rights, the setting should be space horror – an abandoned space station where something is not quite dead and trying to kill you. But Murderbot’s trademark snark and irreverence makes it almost funny. And it worked – it’s definitely unique, and as much as I like space horror, I also enjoy Murderbot viewing a space horror setting as nothing more than highly inconvenient. This series so far is ostensibly about Murderbot investigating a conspiracy, but that just seems to be a reason for it to travel around and do other stuff along the way. It’s less about answers than about Murderbot’s growth. And it’s fascinating to see how it has grown even over three books as uncomfortable-pretending-to-be-human Murderbot now has to pretend to be a SecUnit again. This one didn’t need to be longer – it was a solid story that didn’t feel rushed – but I wish it was longer because I enjoy these books so much.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death (mentions/threat of), violence, injury, kidnapping (brief), grief (mentions), body horror
Book #4: Exit Strategy
Completed December 2022
Considering that Murderbot isn’t human, it’s surprisingly relatable. It’s just a fun, entertaining, compelling character, and I love it. I’m also glad to see Mensa and the rest of the crew from book one back in this book. And that was a good way to emphasize the strong emotional journey and growth that Murderbot has been through over the course of this series so far. For all the violence that follows my favorite SecUnit around, this book is remarkably wholesome. It has a happy ending – not just “immediate problems are solved,” but an actual satisfying happy ending. Which Murderbot definitely deserves. I think this was originally supposed to be the last book in the series, which I would believe because this is a solid ending point. But I’m glad there’s more because I want to read more.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, injury, violence, kidnapping, guns (mentions), mind control (mentions)
Book #5: Network Effect
Completed December 2022
This book is exactly what I wanted from a full-length Murderbot novel – the classic Murderbot combination of entertainment, snark, action, and emotion in a cool scifi setting, but longer. Dr. Mensah and several of the crew from book one are back, along with ART and a selection of new characters, and there’s a new threat in a new section of the universe. But the extra length provided extra opportunity for growth. There was still plenty of action, but Murderbot got to develop some relationships and feel some emotions. The book even dove more into the trauma responses that can happen from all the stuff Murderbot and company have been through. There was a lot of Murderbot wrestling with feelings and interactions with people. I love seeing it grow and deal with feelings – and I know it’s technically because of the robot parts, but Murderbot is full of relatable autism feels. The climax of this book got a little confusing, as it (very briefly) went to three point-of-view characters and it was difficult to keep track of who was talking, but overall it was very good. There’s snark, scifi action, emotional growth, and relationship development all in one book! I know there’s more Murderbot novellas in the series, but I definitely think the series could handle some more full-length novels. At the very least, I want some.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, violence, injury, mind control, grief, kidnapping, confinement
Book #6: Fugitive Telemetry
Completed December 2022
Murderbot is always entertaining, no matter what it’s doing. In this case, it’s trying to solve a mystery on Preservation Station, and has to (horror of horrors) work with security humans. And it was a good time. It didn’t feel fully like a mystery because I don’t think there’s any way I could have figured out the culprit on my own, but that’s fine because the mystery is less about the mystery and more as a vehicle for Murderbot finding its place on Preservation. It got to interact with Preservation humans, work with security humans, and be snarky and good at its job. (Also of note, I’ve often noted that it’s part-bot mind is very relatable to my autism experience, but the beginning of this book had a bit where being a construct – part robot and part cloned human tissue – was very relatable to my nonbinary experience. So that was odd but cool.) This novella seemed lighter and quicker than previous ones in the series. Yeah, there was a murder, but it was overall satisfying and happy. I feel like I can tell Murderbot is adapting and becoming happier because it spends so much less time on-page watching media, and honestly that’s relatable too. I love Murderbot and I love this series, and I’m very happy that it seems to be finding a place in the world where it can live happily. I can’t wait until the next book comes out.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, injury, murder, trafficking (mentions), slavery (mentions), guns
Bluejay Reads 