Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, the Sci-Fi Novellas You’ll Devour in One Sitting
The Murderbot Diaries is a series of novellas by Martha Wells and follows the daily life of a sentient, humanoid construct security unit. It has hacked its “governor module”, and now has independent thought, doesn’t have to follow orders, and doesn’t know how to feel about its new emotions. It finds caring about humans deeply inconvenient, and just wants to watch adventure TV series.
I found myself legitimately laughing out loud listening to these audiobooks. And I devoured four of them in a week. The narrator, Kevin R. Free does a brilliant job of capturing the dry humor and ubiquitous sarcasm of “Murderbot”, as it calls itself. If you’re considering a foray into Sci-Fi, I would highly recommend this series. They’re quick, easy reads, especially if you’ve got a healthy appreciation for dry humor. All of these books were available on Hoopla, so check your local library.
Things to know:
If you combined Jason Statham and the Terminator with an introverted TV addict, you’d have Murderbot
The snark is top tier
As I mentioned above, I’d highly recommend the audiobooks, the narrator is amazing and truly captures the character.
There are six books in total, and book five is a full length novel
Each book picks up directly where the last ended
Book One: All Systems Red
This is the only one I’d heard of. It’s been on my TBR for a while, and I wanted a quick read to get out of a reading slump. What an endearing, murderous construct. Think of these books as a daily diary from a shy, TV-addicted, killing machine. Yes, there’s a lot of layers there. We know virtually nothing about the world, but we do know Murderbot will do anything to keep his newly discovered autonomy secret. All Systems Red is a great introduction to the character and personality of Murderbot, but you don’t get a lot of answers in this one.
“Mensah underestimated my ability to ignore humans, but I appreciated the thought.”
Book Two: Artificial Condition
Murderbot is finally seeking out answers. Did I mention the reason he was able to hack his governor module was because he malfunctioned and killed 57 people on a previous mission? But was it really a malfunction? Or is something more nefarious going on? It stows away on a ship, and meets ART, a powerful transport bot that has just as much attitude as our beloved SecUnit, and gets very upset when TV characters die. Murderbot has to pass as human, so hilarity ensues:
“Yes, the giant transport bot is going to help the construct secunit pretend to be human. This will go well.”
Murderbot is super matter-of-fact, and does have a healthy ego that continually cracked me up:
“I guess hiring human security guards is what you do when you can’t afford real security.”
Book Three: Rogue Protocol
Minor Spoiler: ART isn’t in this one, which, at first, made me immediately think it wasn’t going to be as good because I absolutely loved that bot. The snarky exchanges between them were so entertaining. BUT, we do get introduced to Micki, and I did manage to care a lot about this little pet robot. When I think of “toxic positivity” I think of Micki. It had this innocent attitude like a five-year-old that trusts completely, with a very black and white mentality. I think I was just as annoyed as Murderbot was at first: “This was going to be even more annoying than I had anticipated. And I had anticipated a pretty high level of annoyance. Maybe as high as 85%. Now I was looking at 90–possibly 95%.”
“For a human that would be a hormone-fueled ego talking. For a SecuUit, it’s just a fact.”
I feel like if you’re an introvert, you’ll love these books. I somehow found myself identifying more with an artificial construct than humans…should I be worried?
Book Four: Exit Strategy
Trying to keep these spoiler-free is hard, but this one really shows the depth of emotions Murderbot is developing for humans, and the lengths it will go to, in order to protect them. Yes, it’s still full of the sarcastic attitude of the previous three novellas, but we also start understanding a bit more about what happened during its “malfunction”, and who the true villains are. It’s packed with tense moments, and I flew through this one as Murderbot further develops its personality and independence.
“I was having an emotion, and I hate that.”
“I really needed to get around to setting that one-second delay on my mouth.”
I’ll be honest, I wish we all could have that one.
I can’t wait to dive into the full length novel of book five!