Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries

My rating for the series: 4.5 (out of 5 stars); individual stories vary from 3 to 5 stars

I went through a phase of reading sci-fi in my teens but very little since. When one of my Goodread's acquaintances posted a rave review of the latest instalment of The Murderbot Diaries, I read the review, shrugged, and passed on. Then someone else did the same. This time, I both read the review and wandered off to see what all the fuss was about. 

Martha Wells certainly attracts a large coterie of devoted fans. I find my tastes don't often coincide with what's 'hot'. Anyway, it's a title that lingered in my memory. When Audible UK offered the first four novellas for free (if you're a paying member), I took the plunge.

You might say, the rest was written in the stars.

Yes, it's sci-fi, but with the sci-fi comes added snark, starkly relevant societal critiquing, and the joy of watching someone discover emotions, the ties of friendship, and what they mean. It's also diverse - a nothing-to-see-here acceptance of sexuality, gender, and family structure which comes with humans of every natural hue.

Murderbot's existence has been as an enforcer, an overseer, a guard-for-hire for the corporations who, in Wells' universe, own entire planets and sometimes the populations who inhabit them. Certainly these corporations employ workers on terms that are barely above being a serf. Then one day, it hacks its governor module (another form of serfdom) and gains its freedom.

This where the series starts. Murderbot is still working. As a human/bot construct, it has the capacity to experience emotions. Emotions are weird. Frightening. Too closely tied to the stupid humans it has to guard. To pass the time, it now consumes endless hours of human-produced entertainment. One side benefit is the very gradual insight it gains into how humans interact and why. 

In the first novella, All Systems Red, its employers are academic planetary surveyors, humans from outside the Corporation Rim. They are different. Very different. They talk to Murderbot, treat it as if it matters, and try to involve it in their lives. They refuse to abandon it when everything goes wrong.

From such a kernel comes this first story and the other six, full of adventure, mystery, discovery, humour, bad guys and good guys, and a touching, profound core.

Highly recommended.