The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red / Artificial Condition / Rogue Protocol / Exit Strategy

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.

If i remember correctly, TOR sent these out for free during the pandemic and I downloaded them and threw them in my dropbox to read somewhere down the line. Once the trailer for the TV series dropped I figured now was the time, so I read through the four short stories + first novel I had from ye olden days, then immediately purchased the next two books. They’re easy breezy reads with a likeable but unfortunately named android that gets into all sorts of shenanigans that don’t seem related, but have a cumulative pay off in the fourth short story that really worked for me. Martha Wells is a great author, but she has a “had had” habit in which things “had had” many times, then they “had had” again. It’s grammatically correct, but when I see it in print I feel like I’m seeing double, which doesn’t help my minor astigmatism / dyslexia. Having already read the next three full length stories, I think I actually like these shorter ones much better, they have a much better pace with better payoffs.

Buy On Amazon!