Book Reviews: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

The Murderbot Diaries series
by Martha Wells

The four novellas in The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy) were among my favorite reads in 2019. “Murderbot” is a self-applied nickname for an artificial lifeform — a SecUnit (security unit) made of a combination of both hardware and human tissue. In this series, SecUnit has become fully self-aware, and has hacked and broken the combination of hardware and software that keeps it enslaved as a tool to humans. The problem is, though it feels a sense of responsibility to the humans that is contracted to work for, all it really wants to do is be left alone to watch the futuristic equivalent of high-tech soap operas, and to to not have to interact with humans if at all possible. But, there’s a mystery in its background, in which it may have killed a whole lot of people (hence “Murderbot”) and then had its memory wiped.

Over the course of these four very short novels (a fifth full-length novel is coming in 2020), SecUnit saves a bunch of lives, is granted its autonomous freedom, chooses to run away, investigates its own mysterious past, and comes back to save the lives of the first human “friends” it has ever made. All while telling its adventures in the most self-deprecating, sarcastic way possible. This is serious science fiction, with one of the most appealing, and intriguing, narrative heroes I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Martha Wells brings an intense humanity to SecUnit as a protagonist, but also creates an incredibly believable futuristic world. The pacing is marvelous — jumping from monotonous to pulse-pounding in an instant. I can’t wait to read more in this series!

[ official Murderbot Diaries page on the official Martha Wells web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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