Book #05* Murderbot Diaries 1-4 by Martha Wells
Dec. 8th, 2025 06:56 pm
Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells
Murderbot Diaries #1-#4
SecUnit, a human-machine hybrid, is owned by an evil megacorporation, but it has hacked its own system so it can now do what it wants. It's mostly bored by its job and the boring humans it has to protect, so spends most of its time watching tv shows instead. Over time, it grows emotionally, and gets attached to its favorite clients, despite itself.
Murderbot has always been a wonderful first-person narrator. Very unreliable, my favorite, very snarky, also my favorite, and addicted to tv shows, very relatable. :D
I had read the first novella years ago and then never continued because I found them too expensive. But now that there's a tv adaptation, I wanted to reread, and so I borrowed the first four from a friend and read them all in one go.
thoughts - not very spoilery, I think? Y'all have read them all already anyway, right?
* Man how I love murderbot. I already did the first time I read the first novella, and the three other ones have only deepened that impression. Although of course it's not the easiest to live with. Or like Arada (or was it Pin-Lee? I keep confusing those two) says in book 4: "I'd forgotten what an asshole you are." :D
* When I read the first book, I always thought of murderbot as female - for no other reason than that it's a fan of tv shows, like me (and everyone else I know). Androgynous/non-binary would have been better. The tv adaptation now looks very male. I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle.
* Mensah is just such a sweet character (maybe a bit too ideal, but oh well). No wonder murderbot imprinted on her so much. <3
* I liked all the progressions from "I hacked the weapons scans" to "now I have experience in hacking surveillance and scans and I can do several of them at once" and "I couldn't have gotten through this security check a while ago".
* I love how a lot of the characters are women, and sometimes not specifically mentioned. The two security guards in book 3 for example, which I'd originally pegged as male, but it's revealed late in the book that they're both female.
* I loved ART. Awesome smart, nerdy, and arrogant character, which I would love to meet again (and so would murderbot, I think, even if it claims otherwise).
* To me, the physical changes that ART makes to murderbot (to make it blend in and not look so much like a secunit) sounded like it changed its hairstyle to something more female-looking. It's never actually stated outright, but I liked the idea.
* Through all the novellas, murderbot's voice stays funny and snarky, but small changes are noticeable and I love how it grows, not only in technical skill but also emotionally. It still needs to be dragged into saving its people sometimes, but somehow it does it of its own accord, and I love both.
5 stars - Wonderful unreliable narration, great worldbuilding, neuro-atypical characters galore

1 - 5 stars - Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Final Architecture #1 [DW link]
2 - 2 stars - Miss Merkel: Mord auf dem Friedhof by David Safier Miss Merkel #2 [DW link]
3 - 4 stars - Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire Toby Daye #10 [DW link]
4 - 1 star - Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin [DW link]
5 - 5 stars - Murderbot Diaries 1-4 by Martha Wells [DW link]
