Everybody who has read this series loves it … except me. I tried this book once before two years ago, and bounced off it. This time I liked it. I guess I was in the right mood for it this time around. I’ll read the next book in the series, but it probably won’t be the next book I read.
The main character of this series, Murderbot, is a security robot, built with machine and organic components, that has hacked its own governor module and could mass-murder everybody if it wanted to, but would rather just do its job protecting humans, and watch entertainment feeds. “As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure,” Murderbot explains.
Murderbot’s job is to protect a team of a half-dozen researchers exploring a new planet. It’s a pretty easy gig at first, leaving plenty of time for entertainment feeds. But the job gets serious when the team is threatened by a murderous entity, and Murderbot has to reluctantly get to work.
I liked Murderbot’s voice, their dry wit and laid-back attitude. They find interaction with conventional humans to be excruciating, and far prefer to spend their time with fictional people on the entertainment feeds.
The book’s strengths were enough—this time around—to carry me through things I didn’t like about it. There were only a half dozen characters, and they were hard to tell apart, other than Murderbot herself and the mission leader, Dr. Mensah. Most of the activity takes place either inside a base or in a small vehicle. So even though there was an entire planet to play on, the story seems claustrophobic, like one of those Doctor Who episodes where they drop in on a remote research base or stranded spaceship that’s in danger. Those sorts of episodes seem to be popular with the fans, because the show does so many of them, but they have never been my favorites.
At the end of this book, which is the first in the series, there is an indication that Murderbot is about to explore the wider universe. I hope that’s the way it goes.
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