ALL SYSTEMS RED: Martha Wells: 1 (Murderbot Diaries)

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Not only must Murderbot fight against the corporation and the alien-contaminated bots left on the planet, but also against its own leftover trauma. Faced with nightmares and memory gaps, Murderbot worries their lapses will harm the crew, leaving them feeling more helpless and human than ever before. The strength of this book is in how it shows Murderbot dealing with its emotional issues. For many books of this series, Murderbot has been avoiding doing just that. In this episode, we start to get some real forward momentum. Spry, Jeff (June 22, 2021). "Exclusive Q&A: Sci-fi author Martha Wells talks about her latest Murderbot novella, Fugitive Telemetry". Space.com . Retrieved July 9, 2022.

Born September 1, 1964, she has been a science fiction and fantasy writer ever since her first novel came out. It was a fantasy novel and was released in 1993. Her work also includes many series, including short fiction, non-fiction, and young adult novels. She has received many different awards, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula. It’s easy to think of our former “mindless killing machine” with a soft spot for media entertainment and - brace for it - humans and a certain Asshole Research Transport as amazingly invulnerable, save for a bit of severe social anxiety and awkward difficulty adjusting to accepted personhood after existence as basically a disposable weapon, and now certainly PTSD. But Murderbot is not invulnerable, and emotions happen, and trauma - as much as it would like to keep that part [redacted] - wreaks its consequences on our favorite bot/human construct. Do-Anything Robot: As the operating intelligence of a research ship, ART is quite notably a much more powerful and well-equipped AI than others, especially the much more common bot pilots seen on other ships. To the point that several human characters are confused when ART isn't a simple task unit. It becomes a plot point on more than one occasion. It also turns out to be a necessity, as "research ship" is more of a cover.Eddy, Cheryl (September 16, 2019). "We've Got the Exclusive Cover Reveal and Opening Lines of Martha Wells' Murderbot Novel, Network Effect". io9 . Retrieved May 6, 2020. Spry, Jeff (2021-06-22). "Exclusive Q&A: Sci-fi author Martha Wells talks about her latest Murderbot novella, 'Fugitive Telemetry' ". Space.com . Retrieved 2022-05-28.

But what we have at the heart of this story is, of course, the issue of personhood and interpersonal relationships. And friendship - that other dreaded f-word. “In a low voice, Ratthi commented to Overse, “Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don’t have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now.”You see, after a pretty traumatic life of being treated as nothing more than “an appliance for a team”, a dangerous weapon that can be discarded and abandoned if its human clients need to save their own hides, and being very much an introvert to begin with, Murderbot is not too comfortable with feelings and affection and emotions. Not that it does not have emotions - those are present in abundance - but MB is very uncomfortable expressing them. M-Bot is a very private person and prefers it that way. “Ratthi had said, “I think you should let it go for a while, at least until we get ourselves out of this situation. SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to discuss its feelings.” Fiction Book Review: Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries, Book 3 by Martha Wells". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018 . Retrieved August 22, 2018. This is a short story set after the fourth book of a series. I strongly recommend reading this series and this is not a stand alone story. In this one, we get the point of view from Dr. Mensah and the problem of her dealing with the after effects of her ordeal in the fourth book. I don't think I ever get excited about anything the way I get excited about anything related to Murderbot (if my excited ramblings under this review from before I got the ARC are any indication). If I can't sleep one of my solutions is to put one of the Muderbot audiobooks on and listen to it until I do — The Muderbot Diaries is all consuming. Murderbot has been sent by Dr. Mensah on a research expedition that includes her daughter Amena, her brother-in-law Thiago, and Drs. Arada, Overse, and Ratthi. Their ship is set upon by a hostile transport vessel, which Murderbot and Amena are compelled to board as the others flee in an escape pod. As the transport moves into a nearby wormhole, Murderbot hunts the grey-skinned humanoids in control of the ship, isolates Amena and the human captives Ras and Eletra in a safe zone, and begins to realize that the transport is the same one once controlled by its robot pilot friend ART.But this book is sneaky. As much as you want to think this is just some lightweight little confection made of robot fights and space murder — and as much as All Systems Red wants to present itself as nothing but robot fights and space murder — Martha Wells did something really clever. She hid a delicate, nuanced and deeply, grumpily human story inside these pulp trappings, by making her murderous robot story primarily character-driven. And the character doing the driving? Non-Human Non-Binary: Partly organic, but designed and built without sexual characteristics and opting out of the whole business whenever it has to bring up gender in relation to itself. All bots, AI, and bot-human constructs are "it", including the emancipated "free" bots on Preservation. Also, is rather disgusted at the idea of getting human sexual organs. And as she does, Martha Wells grounds the book in a way that so perfectly describes so much of the human experience. Who wouldn't love Muderbot, the media loving bot construct that has to (reluctantly?) care for its humans? There is no shortage of that in System Collapse with its lovely crabby remarks and snarky banter. It's fun and as you would expect from a Muderbot book, System Collapse explores all of its themes in a complex yet digestible and enjoyable way. Ridiculously Human Robot: Played with. SecUnits' and Bots' physical processes are quite different from humans' (no desires for things like food and sex), but Murderbot and ART both have rather human personalities and a great interest in human media. The unique writing style is the best thing about these books (aside from character construction). It doesn’t follow typical storytelling constructs and often comes across as more conversational than anything else. There’s a great deal of punctuation used to convey Murderbot’s sardonic tone, and no shortage of profanity for comedic impact. I’ve never read anything that comes this close to how I communicate in my daily life, so even the bones of how the story was presented sang to my soul. There were a few occasions where the sarcastic voice was a bit heavy-handed, but this is one of the few cases I would rather a little too much than not enough.

The narrative is almost entirely from 'Bot's viewpoint, and once we pass through the adolescent scenes into the situational investigation and resolution, 'Bot's voice is far more tolerable. When Wells does add in another voice, I'll confess I was triply impressed by both 'Bot 2.0 and by the newly freed Bot. All three managed a separate voice to my read. In a series like this, some parts of it will be more crucial than others. This is not a high-intensity (relatively to plot. All the books are action heavy. Yes, all!) book, it is the aftermath, psychologically and dealing with minor stuff like oh yeah what happens to the population of that planet now (just some hundred, at most a few thousand people...) and more worldbuilding and more (glorious) stuff on how those people (human and not. The non human are just chef's kiss..) deal with each other. It is not an ideas book, but it is a really well done element of a truly original series which focus on action with a lot of thought and care to the characters and worldbuilding. And it is really really well done, Martha Wells is just fully in control of the story. It is not a mind blowing story or a series crucial point, but so worth it (I voted for another book, Children of Memory for the goodreads reader choices awards for sf and I am not changing my vote. Because CoM goes deeper, in ambition and ideas about personhood and consciousness. This is just as good technically but it stays, intentionally, more at the surface). I love Murderbot. Always have and always will. But hate to say it: System Collapse was my least favorite book in the series so far. While it wasn’t necessarily a disaster, it was still disappointing, especially considering it was meant to follow the brilliance of Network Effect.

Tlacey’s ComfortUnit

Violently Protective Shipfriend: To secure Murderbot's release from kidnappers, ART threatens to destroy a colony from orbit. Shortly after is ART's upgrade to Implied Love Interest. At this point I'm really just reading these books for the wee moments of banter (and ART) and silliness amongst all the rest. And we had some good amounts of that in this one. Plus a weird little side issue with Murderbot's memory which is concerning. If It's You, It's Okay: Murderbot Hates Being Touched - touching humans while rescuing them is different and fine - but when it very awkwardly tells Mensah that she can hug it if she needs to, it finds that this isn't awful. It likens this to Tapan sleeping next to it or Don Abene leaning against it after being rescued, both moments that hit it hard when they happened. In the short story "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory", it gives this offer to Mensah again and even says "It's not terrible" when she says she knows it doesn't care for it. From Murderbot, that's a lot. Murderbot has a past where humans were killed and where it came to call itself Murderbot. There was a reason behind the naming, the bot is sure. However, the massacre that inspired this name remains vague in memory. After going through so much and having vague recollections about its past, Murderbot wants to find out more.

Wells made personal history when she was chosen to be one of the authors included in Texas’s Literary Hall of Fame. The honor came in October of 2022, cementing the status of her prolific writing career as well as her impact on the literary world. Her work has also continued to win awards in different languages. You know, if you don’t want to be manually eviscerated with your own energy weapon then maybe you shouldn’t go around killing research transports and antagonizing rogue SecUnits.)”I finally figured out that one of the reasons I love Murderbot so much is that it’s my soul-sibling. MB’s preemptive pessimism and expectation of the worst case scenario every time it is faced with a new problem is exactly my modus operandi, although I’m rather good at concealing it. “I was worried about Mensah, if everything had been okay while I was gone. I wasn’t sure exactly what “okay” would involve, but I was willing to settle for “unmurdered.”Bizarre Human Biology: Even their human parts have unique qualities such as being able to seal their own veins and arteries. Murderbot wasn't programmed to care. So, its decision to help the only human who ever showed it respect must be a system glitch, right? Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah--its former owner (protector? friend?)--submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit. But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast! She becomes a skilled entertainment producer. This is entirely consistent with her fascination with media feeds such as Sanctuary Moon.