March 21, 2023

Binging the Murderbot!

I have very few book series where I try to read all of the books. Of course, you can't read The Fellowship of the Ring without reading The Two Towers and Return of the King. Most books nowadays, you can get away with reading the first and be done with it. I've never read anything past Dune or Eye of the World. I'd like to, but there are just so many other books out there in the universe.

That being said, there are a few authors that I like to read everything that they have. Not in a one after another way, but every few months. Until now. I had been reading about The MurderBot Diaries and never picked them up, and can't say why or why not. It just hadn't jumped out at me. Then I was reading one of those lists about great recent sci-fi and decided to take a chance.

I didn't realize it at first, but the first few books were actually novellas, which allowed me to finish them rather quickly. I hadn't finished a book in under a week since before I opened the shop back in 2014. And when I finished All Systems Red, I immediately started Artificial Condition. I'm now on book number five, Network Effect, and it continues to deliver like the others. This is, also, the first full length novel in the series, though some of the books to follow are novellas.

This is a series that you should really read from the beginning, though. I'm never been one to jump on a series like this, but believe me it's really good.

Here is a blurb about the first book (Amazon) and links to it on Amazon and Bookshop.


All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) - Martha Wells

Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Alex Award
Winner: 2018 Locus Award
One of the Verge's Best Books of 2017
New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

A murderous android discovers itself in 
All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth."

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) - Martha Wells (Amazon) Pictured above

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) - Martha Wells (Bookshop) - This is the first four books in the series 


Disclosure: I use Amazon Affiliate links and Bookshop.org links and may make a little scratch from these links if you use them to purchase anything. For that, I thank you.