What I'm Reading Now: The Murderbot Diaries

Martha Wells, Murderbot Diaries

These novellas took the Science Fiction world by storm more than a year ago, so I'm late in reading them. In my defense, they were priced really high -- ten dollars for an e-copy of a 160 page novella. That's something Tor has been doing with its popular writers, such as Seanan McGuire: pricing their very short works at ten or twelve dollars a pop.

Now you know me, I'm a junkie. I budget book purchases first. I'll spend food money on books without blinking. But even for me, ten dollars for a very short e-book was a deal-breaker. So for a long time I didn't read these books. (The library has Seanan McGuire's books in hard copy, so no problem there.)

But I got some Christmas money from my parents, and also I am still recovering from multiple surgeries, so I went ahead and bought the first one, which was $3.99.

All Systems Red

This novella introduces Murderbot, a Security Unit robot/cyborg. (Murderbot seems to be mostly robot, but it had cloned human bits, like a face and flesh-coverings on its arms and other places. It doesn't need to eat or drink or breathe or sleep, which hit my now-wait buttons. How does it maintain its human bits without eating or breathing? Also it heals really fast, though only with special help.

But all right, let's postulate an advance in technology that makes this possible. That bump aside, this is a great story, though not as good as later stories in the series.

Most Security Units are controlled by a governing module, which will punish them if they stray outside the parameters of their programs. Murderbot has hacked its governing module. Its main desire is to be left alone to watch media -- various adventure series about improbable human characters. (Actual humans it finds tedious at this point in the story.)

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

However, it has been programmed to protect the humans who have its contract, and it also sees that protection as part of its self-interest, since it has already failed once -- there's a mass murder in its past, which it doesn't remember, having had its memory of the event erased.

Here in this episode, we also meet Dr. Mensah, who will be part of the arc of the entire series, as well as other members of Murderbot's crew. (A kind of a romance develops later between Murderbot and Mensah, though I hesitate to call it that, exactly. Murderbot is entirely asexual, and Mensah's feelings for Murderbot, while fierce, also seem partly parental.)

What makes this work -- the pacing and the writing, and Murderbot's character, which is resentful about being forced to deal with humans, and also terrified of dealing with humans. (Later, when it has to pass as human, this becomes a rich field for Wells to explore.) Murderbot's voice is filled with dark, mordant humor, which makes us like the character a great deal, even if Murderbot doesn't seem to like itself very much.

We also like that it does its job so well and so fiercely. And we like that Dr. Mensah recognizes that Murderbot is not a machine, but a trapped (enslaved) intelligent being, as important as any human life.

Artificial Condition

I liked the first one so much, I went ahead and bought the second, though I couldn't help fuming at the high price.

This second installment is one of my favorites. Murderbot makes a friend!

Murderbot travels by hitching rides on semi-intelligent bot ships, trading its stored media for rides. On one of those rides, it finds itself on an actual intelligent bot ship, whom it names ART. Their relationship is the main focus of this novella, though the plot involves Murderbot returning to the scene of the mass murder it was involved with to try to find out what happened, and what its role was in the crime.

Again, Murderbot's voice and the writing, along with the wonderful characters of the bots, carry this story.

Rogue Protocol

The second was so good, I bought the third. This is probably my least favorite novella in the series. Murderbot travels to a terraforming platform to get the goods on GrayCris, who is the overarching villain of the series.

It's not bad, mind you. But it's overly complicated, and at times I had trouble keeping track of the action. You probably need to read it since the events figure in the overall arc of the story, but don't be surprised if you're a little underwhelmed.

Exit Strategy

I was a little reluctant, given the lower standard of the third, to shell out another ten bucks for the fourth, but in the end I went ahead and did it. I'm glad I did. This is the best of the four novellas, and the last so far. (An actual novel is supposed to be released in May 2020.) Dr. Mensah returns, and the plot is a nail-biter. Also, Murderbot is wonderful.

Here's a review on NPR.

Well worth reading, but I'm still a little bitter about the price. Something over $35 for all four novellas. That just seems excessive.