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bloodygranuaileAs a little treat I bought myself the boxed set of the first four novellas in The Murderbot Diaries. I had them already on ebook, which I got for free, and have sent the ebook files to a couple other people, so multiple people have read them for free, but soon Amazon won’t support .mobi files anymore so those will be useless, and also I felt like it was probably high time I sent Martha Wells some monies for all the Murderbot. Anyway now I have nice shiny hard copies that I can lend people, but first I must reread them myself (and by “must” I mean that I want to).
All Systems Red takes place approximately 35,000 hours after Murderbot hacked its governor module, during which time it has mostly just done its job, and done time theft at its job by watching pirated television serials. This itself already makes Murderbot the most relatable robot ever written to probably 90% of its audience. I am not of the opinion that all protagonists have to be relatable but I will also fully admit that I am a huge Murderbot Enjoyer precisely because it is relatable–and at least in my case, because it is relatable in a lot of ways that a) I don’t see that much in fiction and b) are funny because it’s a cyborg. Like, I’m 35. I’ve already eaten through a lifetime’s supply of books with protagonists who are shy, bookish human brunettes who think they’re better than everyone else (yet inevitably wind up in a romantic plotline). It’s novel to find a character relatable because it’s grumpy about security work and being dragged away from its emotional support melodramas.
The plots of these novellas had all gotten tangled up in my head since I binge-read them two years ago so I actually did not have a great idea of what was going on here. ART isn’t in this one yet. This book is about a survey expedition on an uninhabited planet, or rather about three survey expeditions on an uninhabited planet–the PreservationAux one, where Murderbot is employed; a slightly larger one called DeltFall, who PreservationAux is aware of and appears distantly friendly with; and the secret murdery one from GrayCris, who will become a major antagonist throughout the story arc, the only company that makes Murderbot’s unnamed-on-principle shitty-ass company look like good guys. These books don’t have the kind of incredibly rewarding reread value that, say, The Locked Tomb has, but it was nice to re-discover what was going on and I think I could easily end up rereading these multiple times as one of my very limited stable of comfort rereads–they’re short and quick to get through so I don’t feel like I’m sinking in a lot of time I could be spending on something new, and at least I don’t reread Murderbot as much as Murderbot rewatches Sanctuary Moon.
All Systems Red takes place approximately 35,000 hours after Murderbot hacked its governor module, during which time it has mostly just done its job, and done time theft at its job by watching pirated television serials. This itself already makes Murderbot the most relatable robot ever written to probably 90% of its audience. I am not of the opinion that all protagonists have to be relatable but I will also fully admit that I am a huge Murderbot Enjoyer precisely because it is relatable–and at least in my case, because it is relatable in a lot of ways that a) I don’t see that much in fiction and b) are funny because it’s a cyborg. Like, I’m 35. I’ve already eaten through a lifetime’s supply of books with protagonists who are shy, bookish human brunettes who think they’re better than everyone else (yet inevitably wind up in a romantic plotline). It’s novel to find a character relatable because it’s grumpy about security work and being dragged away from its emotional support melodramas.
The plots of these novellas had all gotten tangled up in my head since I binge-read them two years ago so I actually did not have a great idea of what was going on here. ART isn’t in this one yet. This book is about a survey expedition on an uninhabited planet, or rather about three survey expeditions on an uninhabited planet–the PreservationAux one, where Murderbot is employed; a slightly larger one called DeltFall, who PreservationAux is aware of and appears distantly friendly with; and the secret murdery one from GrayCris, who will become a major antagonist throughout the story arc, the only company that makes Murderbot’s unnamed-on-principle shitty-ass company look like good guys. These books don’t have the kind of incredibly rewarding reread value that, say, The Locked Tomb has, but it was nice to re-discover what was going on and I think I could easily end up rereading these multiple times as one of my very limited stable of comfort rereads–they’re short and quick to get through so I don’t feel like I’m sinking in a lot of time I could be spending on something new, and at least I don’t reread Murderbot as much as Murderbot rewatches Sanctuary Moon.