I listened to all 4 available Murdebot novellas in a row, so I’m not gonna try to review each separately (my memory gets instantly fuzzy) and just keep it all vague and spoiler free. Also, I loved this series, and the more I think about it now, while writing this review, the more I love about it.
First of all, excuse my shouting this from the rooftops, MURDERBOT HAS A CHARACTER WITH A ROMANIAN NAME!!!!!! In all the books I’ve read I don’t think I’ve ever come across a character just casually having a Romanian name. I got so excited about this I had to pause the book and tell all my friends. Also Martha Wells is now my bae forever. The name is Volescu btw, as far as I know all the -escu names are Romanian (that’s what they taught us in school at least). And it’s not just some unimportant character, it’s a a doctor and one of the main cast of the first novella.
I know a lot of people often mention how novellas suffer from novella syndrome, being too short and feeling like stuff was left out or happened too fast. I’m not among those people, I love the short, concentrated format, so if you’re wondering whether Murdebot has novella syndrome I can’t help you there, though the series’ long list of awards should stand as some endorsement that they are fucking good.
Characters
Murdebot is amazing, way too relatable for an AI and I love it. It’s a security unit construct, made of tech and cloned human genetic material,which had an unintended consequence of leaving it with anxiety. All it wants is to avoid human interaction, annoying emotions, and binge watch TV series. You could sum me up with that sentence as well. I thought it was great how Murderbot is both relatable and alien, especially in the way it thinks of humans. We get to meet other AIs, ART in book 2 and Micky in book 3, and they’re also great, and unique. AI really like watching TV shows and it’s super cute. I also liked how Murderbot has this tough loner, I don’t need nobody, vibe, but ends up forming bonds and caring for people and AIs despite itself.
The human characters seemed a little less distinct to me. Books 1-3 each introduce a team on a job, and while we get to know and love the team leader, the other team members did have distinct characteristics, but not enough for me to hang on to.
Story
I love love love that each novella has a complete arc and they also tie in together, but there’s no burden on the reader to remember details (they get mentioned again), which as a very forgetful reader, I deeply appreciate. They’re all pretty fast paced adventures, of a small team, stranded in a strange environment with various unknown threats attacking them. Especially books 1 and 3 have this semi-horror thing where they’re alone on a planet and don’t know who and why is trying to kill them. Book two has been my least favorite of the bunch story wise, even though it has some big revelations for Murderbot, and it gives us ART, who I love.
Murdebot is very, dare I say, sweet, it keeps thinking it’s just gonna do its own thing, relax and watch the media streams, but keeps getting drawn in by these groups of fragile, clueless humans walking into dangerous situations. They would surely get themselves killed if not for a Security Unit looking out for them.
In All Systems Red we learn about a corporation with some highly questionable practices. Artificial Condition has Murderbot uncovering some truths about its past, yes, while also ending up protecting some humans. Rogue Protocol circles back to investigating something about this increasingly shady corporation, while also protecting a group of humans. And Exit Strategy, well I’m still reading Exit Strategy while writing this review, but it goes to shady corporation central, where Murderbot has to protect a group of humans. Not that it cares about them or anything. Never.(later edit: Exit Strategy really went to town with that ending, loved the big showdown)
World
The world is immense, interplanetary and divided between corporation and non-corporation political entities. A lot of the action takes place on remote planets and ships travelling between them, but we also get glimpses of busy travel hubs, and in book 4 one of the worlds where a lot of the evil money-grabbing profit-oriented corporations have their headquarters. The world building is mostly setting, not the point of the series, if that makes sense, except for the construction and functioning of robots and constructs, which are detailed well, most other things just are, without a lot of explanation. Murderbot critiquing its company’s stingy practices, and bitching about how humans shouldn’t handle security because they never think of all the things, is great fun.
In a nutshell
Murderbot Diaries is a fun series of novella with lots of action and a great, maybe a lil bit too relatable AI.
Bingo squares
Novella, AI hard mode,