Disclaimer: This is a review, and as such will contain opinions, spoilers and (often) general shit talking. (If you talk about what you don’t like about a work, you learn a lot. When you think through a work with the stakes presented to you by the creator, by the context of the work, you learn a lot. I review things, not because I love to dislike things, but because dislike contains rich and vital information for the process of experiencing something, but I cannot access it without interrogating it.) So, if you don’t want to have this thing spoiled for you, or don’t know how to behave when a person on the internet, that you don’t know, has opinions that don’t line up with yours, this review is not for you. It’s also not for the author/creator of the work. Please and thank you.
Sarcasm, stoic capitulation and silently judging other people for not getting your jokes – what’s not to love?!
This series is some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever read. I so deeply resonate with Murderbot’s inner monologue and feel seen and validated.
The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells, is a series concerning a violent, self-hacking cyborg searching for the meaning of life.
Book 0.1: Obsolescence
Take Us To A Better Place is a free ebook featuring 10 short stories, one of the stories was Obsolescence by Martha Wells.
It isn’t a Murderbot story, per se, more of a parallel timeline story. In Exit Strategy Murderbot watches a historical drama that has the precursor to the constructs, called Rovers. Some of the humans were friends with Rovers and Murderbot considered that so wildly unrealistic it stopped watching the drama.
Despite seeing the relationship between Don Abena and Miki, the PreservationAux team being determined to save Murderbot and make it a part of their team, Murderbot isn’t ready to consider the possibility of friendship with humans, let alone any kind of trust between it and other bots or constructs. (ART has only just begun to break down that barrier.)
Obsolescence takes place after the Augmenter Rovers program has ceased but retired Augmented Rovers still survive, and has a lot of the hallmarks of a Murderbot story.
Book 0.5: Compulsory, the blink-and-you-miss it illustrated short story.
A short but sweet delve into the early days of having hacked its governor module, Murderbot is (as ever) grappling with free will making daily life complicated.
Book 1: All Systems Red
The series kicks off with the award-winning All Systems Red, where we meet Muderbot and find out that it has a secret. Also that it’s kind of searching for the meaning of life and watching a lot of telly while working it out. You can read the whole review here.
Book 2: Artificial Condition
In Artificial Condition we continue to follow along Murderbot’s existential troubles, while it tries to figure out what lies in its memory gaps. That review is here.
I’m giving up on writing individual reviews on each book because I’ll just go on forever if I don’t put some kind of limits on this. I could read an entire book of Murderbot just watching media and I’d love it.
These books are home now. They’re never leaving me. I love them all. And I hope there are a few more (which, if I remember correctly, have been tentatively planned).
Book 3: Rogue Protocol
The deeper we get into the story, history and internal workings of Murderbot, the more interesting things get and the more we delve into questions about what it means to be human – I mean that was always clear from the beginning because it’s hard to write about a robot or non-human sentience without getting into it.
The plot keeps up a decent clip in Rogue Protocol as Murderbot continues to make friends everywhere it goes. Murderbot is a bit more experienced in the ways of humans, but still struggling to find how it fits into a world which is mostly made up of them.
Murderbot is finding more and more that while it generally prefers to keep a safe distance between itself and any humans, life has a way of pushing you into those situations you wish to be in the least. Heading to a GreyCris abandoned terraforming installation Murderbot hopes to help Dr Mensah after just disappearing on her.
This requires it to integrate itself with an exploration team heading that way. It’s supposed to be an easy job, in, out, home free. But then it finds out about Miki and Murderbot careens straight into one of those events that change your life forever.
I signalled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.
Book 4: Exit Strategy
After having run away and travelled the galaxy in disguise to unearth its own murderous past, Murderbot is heading back to help Dr Mensah submit evidence against GreyCris. Murderbot now has enough dirt on the GrayCris corporation to make it really sting. The problem is, GrayCris is now aware of Murderbot’s rogue existence.
GreyCris have abducted D. Mensah – the one person whom (gasp!) Murderbot actually cares about. So, Murderbot only has one option: go rescue her. Because there is no way it’s gonna let GreyCris win.
Despite developing and uncovering ever more human sides to itself, Murderbot never conflates its personhood with actually being human. While Murderbot can pass for a human, it doesn’t strive to become human, rather it’s on a journey of ascertaining and accepting its own personhood – whatever that means.
The way Murderbot becomes almost lost when it sees others actually care about it is simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking. And it’s very satisfying to see it begin to reshape its self-image from something that has only ever been used to Someone.
Book 4.5: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory short story
I enjoyed this one the least out of all the Murderbot stuff I’ve read. It’s less about Murderbot and more about what’s happening around Murderbot. It’s a more outside perspective than the books and I just found I didn’t quite care about Mensah this much as it’s Murderbot’s perspective that I enjoy most about the books themselves.
This short story doesn’t add anything to the narrative that we don’t already know from the books, but is more like a closer look at things mentioned in the books.
Book 5: Network Effect
Network Effect is the first full-length novel in this series and we get a more complex plot in a single book. Murderbot is with Dr Mensah and the other characters from Preservation Station who Murderbot was protection in All Systems Red and Exit Strategy.
What I love about Preservation is that its an outlier in this corporate controlled universe. It’s the only place where Murderbot is seen as a person rather than a possession. And with that comes even more complications – Mensah’s brother-in-law Thiago being suspicious of Muderbot’s influence over Mensah, and Mensah’s daughter Amana being irritated by Murderbot when it intervenes in her adolescent interpersonal ongoings.
Murderbot was just having a bit of fun. And it was hilarious. It’s also not surprising that Mensah’s daughter ends up being one of the few people who can cut through Murderbot’s hard outer shell.
ART makes a sudden and unexpected comeback as the survey expedition Murderbot is the designated security consultant for is attacked. The problem is while the Perihelion is physically present, ART is nowhere to be found. And the aliens are trying to kill everyone. But not on Murderbot’s watch.
We get to see as Murderbot develops more and more awareness and finds that relationships are just as complicated and messy as they’re portrayed in media. Except in real life, there’s no convenient narrative to clean it all up by the end of the episode – that’s all on you.
Murderbot learns more about who it wants to be and even finds some plans for the future – a future where it can make proactive decisions about what it wants to do, rather than what it wants to run away from.
While Murderbot still hates feelings – don’t mention the F-word around it – it’s finally starting to admit that humans aren’t the only ones who are capable of making stupid, impulsive decisions. The right of self-determination is a theme running through this entire series, but in Network Effect that finally takes a significant turn for Murderbot.
Book 6: Fugitive Telemetry
This book is surprisingly cosy for kicking off with a dead body.
And Murderbot now has to figure out who the killer is. Clearly, it’s not Murder bot because, “No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall“.
While the Preservation Station has a threat assessment of 7%, a dead body might mean GrayCris is up to something. So, of course, Murderbot gets involved with station security and has to work with humans to figure out who dunnit.
In terms of chronological order, this takes place before Network Effect, and while some familiar faces make an appearance again, Murderbot gets a whole bunch of new humans to work with. Humans, who don’t like Murderbot. And this means Murderbot has to make an effort!
Book 7: System Collapse
Welcome to overthinking Murderbot. “Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.“
Murderbot is not okay. I repeat, Murderbot is not okay.
I was supposed to ‘check in regularly with my emotions’ which I pretended was a thing I had any intention of doing… I had fifty-seven unique sources of concern/anxiety, speaking of checking in with my emotions, but nothing I could do anything about right now.
Set immediately after the end of Network Effect, Murderbot and a few of its favourite humans, along with ART, are rescuing some abandoned colonists from becoming indentured servants. On a planet suffering from alien contamination.
But at every turn, they’re faced with the fact that there are no ethical corporations in the galaxy. And if Barish-Estranza can’t have what they originally came for, they’re certainly not going to leave empty handed!
We delve into Murderbot’s struggle with PTSD and get some beautifully creative obfuscation in storytelling. Murdebot is overwhelmed with feelings (ew, I know) and struggling to compute. After all, only some parts of it are organic. And Murderbot may have underestimated some of those organic parts.
This episode in Murderbot’s story is defined by its emotional struggles and indecisiveness. This has been building for a long time and, finally, it’s all coming to a head. The growth Murderbot has undergone since All Systems Red all comes crashing down at once and numbing yourself with media just isn’t enough anymore. The system is collapsing.
Murderbot even has so many people it now cares about it’s categorising them by groups.
Final thoughts and a word on the themes.
I wolf down anything Murderbot. Always.
This is a fascinating series that’s great for anyone who loves fast-paced sci-fi where the world and story are effectively and creatively used to explore deep, large, societal and personal themes.
The Murderbot Diaries explore several fascinating themes, like identity, self-determination, humanity and personhood.
Murderbot, a SecUnit designed to be nothing more than a function, hacks its governor module to gain autonomy, but then struggles with what that freedom means and how to define itself beyond its programming. Through its perspective as an artificial construct – that develops human-like emotions and attachments despite its non-human origins – we then explore what it means to be human.
Corporate exploitation colours everything in this universe. Unregulated capitalism runs rampant as corporations treat humans, bots and constructs as nothing more than disposable resources to be used and discarded.
We also delve into isolation throughout the whole series. While Murderbot claims to prefer isolation and entertainment media to human interaction or friendship, it gradually (and reluctantly) forms relationships with humans and other constructs alike. This isn’t easily done, though, and the push-and-pull of a desire for independence vs. a need for connection is a constant source of frustration for Murderbot.
As we progress through the series, we also get into trauma and recovery. Not only is there trauma in Murderbot’s past that it can’t remember, more and more is heaped onto it as it sacrifices life and limb (literally) to protect those it has promised to protect.
From massacre to being seen as nothing more than a possession and disposable resource to being killed and tortured, there’s a lot on Murderbot’s plate.
Murderbot battles anxiety and PTSD-like symptoms from the very beginning, but that becomes more challenging as life goes on.
In the beginning, Murderbot uses media consumption as a coping mechanism. Its obsession with entertainment shows serves as both escapism and a lens through which it (and by extension ART) can decipher and better understand human behaviour. But running away from your feelings will only take you so far.
In the end, Murderbot finds it (reluctantly) cares for more people that it ever thought would be possible. The slowly growing trust and loyalty Murderbot experiences towards Mensah and her team, as well as ART and his crew, helps Murderbot discover a sense of belonging, like there is a place for it and others like it in the universe.
Trauma and recovery – Murderbot deals with past trauma related to a massacre it was involved in (but not responsible for) and works through anxiety and PTSD-like symptoms throughout the series.
Media consumption as coping mechanism – Murderbot’s obsession with entertainment shows (particularly “Sanctuary Moon”) serves as both escapism and a lens through which it learns to understand human behavior.
Found family – Despite its reluctance, Murderbot gradually forms a kind of family unit with Dr. Mensah and her team, exploring themes of trust, loyalty, and belonging.
As I’ve said many times, any time you write about some kind of ‘other’ you end up writing about what it means to be human. And Murderbot is one of the most fun ways to explore that, when you feel at home with fast-moving action and tons of snark.
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