Ah, the Murderbot diaries. If you haven’t heard of these books yet, you’re in for a treat, because this is one of the best ongoing series currently in science fiction. This review will mostly just be for the first book, but since my reviews of the other books will probably contain spoilers, much of what I say here will also apply to the series as a whole.
The big appeal to the Murderbot books is the main character. It is an extremely sarcastic and scarily competent killing machine, who struggles with the human emotions it develops after hacking itself to gain its own freedom. It develops these human emotions after watching thousands of hours of sitcoms, dramas, and soap operas, especially from the series Sanctuary Moon, to which it returns for comfort whenever things get super tense. There’s also an element of mystery, because it’s implied that the reason Murderbot hacked itself is because it malfunctioned and went on a killing rampage, and that the security bond company’s efforts to wipe that incident from its memory banks were not entirely successful.
The biggest thing I like about Murderbot is how incredibly competent it is, even though it would not describe itself that way—indeed, it goes out of the way to point out its own failings, though more out of its anxiety issues than anything else. But really, Murderbot is quite brilliant at solving problems—or, more importantly, identifying potential threats and neutralizing them before they become problems. Paranoia really can be a lifesaver sometimes, especially when you’re a rogue SecUnit and all the humans are terrified that you’re one malfunction away from going on a killing spree. Again.
But even though Murderbot is extremely good at what it’s been programmed to do—and also at a few things it hasn’t been programmed to do, such as hacking into networks and systems the way it hacked into itself—when it comes to human emotions, or dealing with people, or any kind of social interactions whatsoever, Murderbot constantly struggles. And this is probably what makes Murderbot so adorable to its many fans. That, and all the self-deprecating sarcasm. These books all have a very strong character voice, and after reading just a few of them, you feel like you’ve made a good friend.
The first book starts out with a fairly typical mission for Murderbot, though the characters on this mission are very important in the later books. Even though Murderbot is technically a free agent, it has done everything within its power to hide that fact, and continues to behave like any other SecUnit that the company (which is never named in any of the books, for reasons that become increasingly ominious in the later ones) rents out on security contracts. Basically, Murderbot is content pretending to be just another SecUnit while filling all its downtime with watching entertainment media. But of course, the events of the book soon break it out of its comfort zone, forcing it to reveal to its human clients that it is, indeed, a free agent.
The thing I like most about the humans in this book is that even though they are idiots at times, especially in those areas where Murderbot has its strengths, they understand emotions and people much better than Murderbot does. This is especially true of Doctor Mensah, the head of the expedition, who is a genuinely awesome leader—and Murderbot quickly comes to recognize and admire her as such. As Murderbot and the humans learn to work together, it becomes quickly apparent that the strengths of the one complement the weaknesses of the other, which makes for a very satisfying book.
The reason I’m giving this book four stars instead of five is because I think it would have been stronger if the first four books had been combined in a single novel, as opposed to four novellas. There are some things I really like about the novella format, such as the ease of reading it and the speed with which it draws you into the series as a whole. But it didn’t really give me a strong sense of immersion. It was fast, it was fun, and Murderbot was really awesome, but it lacked the immersion necessary to ramp all of those positive aspects of the story up another notch.
Thankfully, though the first book does end on something of a cliffhanger, it definitely holds together as a complete and satisfying story, and a wonderful introduction to the rest of this awesome series.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
