A big thank you to Faintingviolet for suggesting the Muderbot diaries to me. I’m not a huge Sci-Fi fan, but this book was perfect. Martha Wells masterfully creates an enormous world full of technological advancement and space travel but stays close enough to character to let us non-SciFi loving people into her world. ‘Murderbot’ is a robot with more human qualities than some of the humans we meet, and every introvert’s best friend. When not doing its job as armed security, it prefers to sit under its helmet and watch its downloaded entertainment feed and not talk to people. This isn’t to say it doesn’t like people; it loves its comedies and movies about people. It enjoys observing its human clientele and learning about the human condition. It just doesn’t want to be involved. This modus operandi has worked just fine for Murderbot until it’s sent with a group of scientists to find samples on new planets. Dr. Mensah and the other members of PreservationAux note Murderbot’s un-robot-like characteristics after a massive disaster, and much to Muderbot’s shegrin, keep trying to integrate the robot into their human activities.
At its core, and the reason I think this book resonates in such a fresh way, is that it’s a story about an outsider who wants to stay outside without wandering into the territory of anti-hero. Murderbot enjoys being a free agent under the guise of still working for its firm. Its fine flying under the radar and doing what it wants, but problems arise for Murderbot when the members of PreserevationAux start talking about freedom, about where the line is between human and bot. About Muderbot being a someone instead of a something. And with Murderbot’s questions of their own self-identity, comes the greater question of what Murderbot’s options are when all the lids have been blown off.