Total page count: 807 pages
My original reviews and ratings for the first four novellas can be found
here.
CBR17 Bingo: Favourite (goes for the whole series, and the protagonist)
All Systems Red
Nowhere Book Bingo 25: First in a series
It's been five years since I first read The Murderbot Diaries, and it was interesting to revisit the original novella. This was selected as the January selection for my real-life book club (with the option to read the other three if people had time). While a lot of the members really enjoyed the story, it was agreed that this story is mostly set up and quite unsatisfying if you don't keep going with the series to discover more of Murderbot as a character. There were some who found Murderbot as a narrator quite annoying, while others (like me) found Murderbot's misanthropic attitude and desire to just be left alone to watch its stories deeply relatable.
Even now, having read the whole series, I still find a lot of the supporting characters who are introduced in this story a bit confusing, and they mostly blend together for me. Doctor Mensah is an obvious exception since Murderbot respects her so much.
The structure of the novella is also a bit wonky. It starts relatively slow, and then there's a series of dramatic events before the story ends very abruptly, possibly too quickly.
I also feel like I should address the Apple TV adaptation of this novella, which manages to capture the tone and feel of the story while making some pretty massive changes. Quite a few of the supporting characters have been cut (the fact that it works as well as it does suggests that Wells probably didn't need the Pres Aux team to be as big as it is in the novella - no wonder I keep getting the characters confused). Skarsgård plays an excellent Murderbot, even though he's not Murderbot as I imagine it (the Murderbot in my head is female presenting, more like Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth rather than tall, handsome and Scandinavian), and I can't help but think that our favourite SecUnit's extreme social awkwardness is portrayed so well since Skarsgård is so familiar with Scandinavians and our weird introverted way of being. No one in Scandinavia likes being talked to by strangers or having FEELINGS shared all over them.
One of my favourite things about the adaptation is the choice to have scenes from Murderbot's favourite media shown to the viewers. If I wasn't already pretty sure I'd be hooked on Sanctuary Moon, seeing the brief snippets of it on screen confirms it. There is still an episode left to go, but so far, I think the show may be dealing with the confusing end section of the story better than in the novella. Time will tell.
Artificial Condition
Nowhere Book Bingo 25: A novella
I remembered this as one of my favourites of the novellas, and upon revisiting it, knowing how the relationship between Murderbot and ART (A**hole Research Transport) develops in later stories, it was extra satisfying to see how their friendship began. Considering Murderbot is usually the smartest individual in the room, and keeps being exasperated by the silly humans around it, it was fun to see it befriend someone who is certainly on the same level, and probably intellectually even more impressive. Reading about ART and Murderbot bonding through watching Murderbot's various shows might also have struck a particular chord with me, as that is how my husband and I met (watching shows in various friends' dorm rooms), and we still spend a lot of quality time enjoying shows together.
Another thing I'd forgotten about this book was how quickly Murderbot, so intent on going off on adventures of its own, trying to avoid annoying emotional attachments, so quickly finds a new group of vulnerable, squishy humans it needs to protect. The humans in this story are, if possible, even more clueless in the big, ruthless corporate world than the Pres Aux team, and that is saying something.
I'm also very relieved that Apple TV have announced that there will be a second season of Murderbot, so viewers get to watch the friendship of ART and Murderbot develop on screen. Hopefully, we'll also get glimpses of more of Murderbot's favourite shows.
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy - 3.5 stars
This surprise story was announced by TOR only days before the first season of Murderbot aired, and it was launched online after the last episode aired. Considering it's chronologically set after Artificial Condition, it's not like it contains direct spoilers.
Considering we don't actually get to meet ART again in the Murderbot universe until
Network Effect, it was a really nice bonus given to the fans from Martha Wells, a story showing us ART/Perihelion with its own crew a short while after it and Murderbot part ways in the second novella. I'm a huge fan of ART/Peri, and seeing the scary transport interacting with its own crew in this story was an unexpected delight.
Rogue Protocol
I remembered this story as the one I liked the least of the original four novellas when I first read the series. Upon a re-read, I was surprised to see how incredibly action-packed it was compared to the other novellas, and it's in this story that we really see why Murderbot may have chosen that name for itself.
Going back to the now-abandoned mining colony, where it suspected it had committed a massacre, proves to it that a large group of people got killed, but it also proves to Murderbot how right it was to disable its governor module, so it can never be made to do things like that ever again. Any murders it will be doing in the future will be to protect others, not just senseless violence at the orders of a greedy corporation.
It's quite clear from some of the early Murderbot stories that our favourite SecUnit has some not always pleasant prejudices towards other robots, and in this story, Murderbot is forced to confront some of these. One of the reasons Murderbot felt it had to leave its favourite human, Doctor Mensah, and the Pres Aux team was because it didn't want to become someone's pet droid. Having been basically enslaved in its service with the Corporation, before it hacked its governor module and went rogue, Murderbot, even with the extremely progressive view of the members of the Pres Aux team, it just can't really believe that humans could feel towards robots as they do humans. So it's good for its personal development and continued journey towards some kind of personhood to have some of those notions disproved.
Mild spoiler warning - this is probably the novella with the most bummer ending of all of them.
Exit Strategy
Having discovered during its wanderings, trying to find itself, that GreyCris, the evil corporation that tried to kill the Preservation Alliance crew in the first novella, has kidnapped Doctor Mensah, Murderbot (who really shouldn't have feelings for anything or anyone) feels compelled to return for a rescue mission. By now, Murderbot has met and interacted with a bunch of other human groups, and even experienced loss and something like grief, and since Doctor Mensah is its favourite human in the whole world, it can't stand by and see her endangered by GreyCris. It also becomes clear that Murderbot is ready and willing to die in the attempt to get Mensah safe.
I don't think it's a spoiler to anyone that Murderbot, the protagonist of the series, which is currently eight stories and counting (I recently heard that a new Murderbot book, Platform Decay, will be coming out in 2026 - much rejoicing) isn't actually killed here. In case anyone was worried.
Before I finally read
Network Effect, this was probably my favourite Murderbot story.
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory - 3 stars
While most of the stories in The Murderbot Diaries are obviously told from Murderbot/SecUnit's POV, this short story is set after the events of Exit Strategy. It gives us Doctor Mensah's perspective both on the events of that novella and shows us her dealing with the aftermath of what is clearly a very traumatising experience.
Mensah is clearly a very intelligent and sensitive person, and her insights into Murderbot and the understanding she's clearly gained about it over the course of the novellas (she clearly thought a lot about everyone's favourite SecUnit even when it was away from her and busy finding its own purpose in the world).
I didn't realise this existed when I first read the series, so I had to go back to it a bit out of continuity, but it's always nice to see the Murderbot world through some of the other characters' eyes, as well.
Fugitive Telemetry - 4.5 stars
Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Technology
While Murderbot isn't anyone's pet at Preservation Station, it's not entirely clear what its duties are supposed to be. Because of the rather harrowing events in Exit Strategy, Murderbot is obviously extremely protective of Doctor Mensah. Protective to the point where it's not surprising when the woman is almost relieved when a dead body shows up, so she can volunteer her SecUnit to assist in the investigation.
Murderbot is worried that the dead body may have something to do with GreyCris, so it agrees to help determine the identity of the deceased, find out where the body was killed and how, and most importantly, why this happened. Of course, in order to do so, it needs to persuade the rather cautious members of station security to trust it (not everyone knows that Murderbot, while a rogue SecUnit, isn't a BAD SecUnit) and speak to a number of humans and other robots, not exactly something it's super well-equipped to handle.
To my delight, Murderbot seeks the advice of Ratthi and Gurathin, some of my favourite supporting characters (the show did SO much to expand on the character of Gurathin - I liked him before, now I love him).
Because this novella was published as the sixth in the series, but chronologically takes place as number five, I skipped it on my first read-through, because I didn't want to read it out of order. So, with the exception of Rapport, which came as a surprise to everyone, this was my last existing Murderbot story to discover. Having now read it, I'm sorry I waited so long. It was great.