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A review by cityinkwell
The Complete Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
adventurous
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This series is lifechanging.
Overall: The first book is very character-driven, the second is a clean mix between action, plot, and character, the third is action and plot, the fourth is firmly an action book that cleanly wraps up the storyline.
As a person who loves character-driven stories, WOW. Gobsmacked. Shaken. It feels like I'm actively reading a film. Murderbot is an incredibly funny character, a combination of a lackadaisical attitude, incredible social anxiety, and its status as a Murder Robot For Hire creating an incredibly compelling narrator. Murderbot is as snarky as it is meltdown-level awkward, and very sure in its own capacity in combat.
Each novella shows it engaging in the world in a different way - through humans, through other intelligent machines, through society, and through Mad Hacker Skills. These aren't long stories, but we see radical character growth through each one. This is good, GOOD writing, clean and vibrant prose that tries as best as it can to introduce a bunch of sci-fi concepts through context clues instead of exposition so it has more time to explore Murderbot's fraught psyche. Peak.
I think this kind of undermines the cohesion of the last book, where Murderbot is utilizing a lot of the infrastructure and layout of a city all simultaneously, and while the internal logic is sound, it was kind of difficult to keep track of why and how things worked. It ended up ruining a lot of the immersion, but the ending satisfied me and I like Murderbot too much to deduct even a fourth of a star. I don't read sci-fi but this is somehow a book just for me.
God I need to read the sequel series so bad I'm gonna be sick.
Overall: The first book is very character-driven, the second is a clean mix between action, plot, and character, the third is action and plot, the fourth is firmly an action book that cleanly wraps up the storyline.
As a person who loves character-driven stories, WOW. Gobsmacked. Shaken. It feels like I'm actively reading a film. Murderbot is an incredibly funny character, a combination of a lackadaisical attitude, incredible social anxiety, and its status as a Murder Robot For Hire creating an incredibly compelling narrator. Murderbot is as snarky as it is meltdown-level awkward, and very sure in its own capacity in combat.
Each novella shows it engaging in the world in a different way - through humans, through other intelligent machines, through society, and through Mad Hacker Skills. These aren't long stories, but we see radical character growth through each one. This is good, GOOD writing, clean and vibrant prose that tries as best as it can to introduce a bunch of sci-fi concepts through context clues instead of exposition so it has more time to explore Murderbot's fraught psyche. Peak.
I think this kind of undermines the cohesion of the last book, where Murderbot is utilizing a lot of the infrastructure and layout of a city all simultaneously, and while the internal logic is sound, it was kind of difficult to keep track of why and how things worked. It ended up ruining a lot of the immersion, but the ending satisfied me and I like Murderbot too much to deduct even a fourth of a star. I don't read sci-fi but this is somehow a book just for me.
God I need to read the sequel series so bad I'm gonna be sick.