There’s a mystery at play which resolves over the course of the novella, but the core characters are established here, along with Murderbot’s ongoing attempts to understand what exactly it wants to make of itself. As the hapless scientists look to Murderbot for safety and treat it with unusual compassion and humanity, the largely misanthropic android – who finds interacting with humans stressful at the best of times – finds itself unexpectedly warming to its charges, especially their leader Dr.

It’s also distrustful of humans, low-key sassy and emotionally vulnerable in a remarkably relatable way.Īll Systems Red opens with Murderbot providing security for a group of mild-mannered scientists, a job which turns out to be much more dangerous than anyone expected. Unlike most SecUnits, Murderbot has hacked its governor module to give itself freedom from company control, and is largely content to pay little attention to its actual job, and instead consume endless hours of media via its data feed. Across the four stories they tell the tale of a rogue SecUnit which calls itself Murderbot – a part-human, part-machine android designed and created to be hired out to anyone who needs security and can pay its parent company’s fees. The first four books in Martha Wells’ brilliant sci-fi series The Murderbot Diaries comprise the novellas All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy, all published by Tor.com between 20.