It’s scant comfort, but at least Murderbot knows it’s not a mass murderer by nature.) (The answer turns out to be a combination of the two, but in such a way that absolves Murderbot of responsibility-malfunctioning malware, corporate sabotage gone wrong. It only partly remembers the incident, and it needs to know if the killing spree was deliberate, or a malfunction. Murderbot learns to pass as an augmented human, enabling it to investigate a disturbing mystery from its past-the one time it actually was a heartless killing machine, when it murdered dozens of humans it was supposed to be protecting. Mensah and her team of scientists, whom Murderbot saved from Gra圜ris, an unscrupulous company that illegally mines alien artifacts and “strange synthetics” from uncharted planets. Pretty much everyone else in the galactic population would be happy to see Murderbot decommissioned and stripped for parts. There are a few humans who want to help Murderbot, namely Dr.

Once Murderbot’s secret becomes known, things get complicated. Quite the opposite, as we learned in All Systems Red and Artificial Condition, the first two novellas in the series.

Not that life as a rogue SecUnit is easy. Murderbot is living proof that the truth is more complicated-the sarcastic SecUnit has hacked its governor module without becoming a heartless killing machine. As long as a SecUnit’s governor module is functioning, no mass-murdering if its governor module goes haywire, run for your lives. In order to prevent them “going rogue” (i.e., turning into heartless killing machines), SecUnits have a governor module that ensures obedience to their human masters. SecUnits are expensive, dangerous, and controversial (see: sentient deadly weapon).

Murderbot is a SecUnit, a half-human, half-robot security “construct”-a sentient deadly weapon. It’s also a great running joke, once you get to know Murderbot. Murderbot, the anxious, antisocial android hero of Martha Wells’s The Murderbot Diaries, never misses an opportunity to refer to itself as a “heartless killing machine.” The wry self-deprecation sets the tone in the opening paragraph of the series and becomes a touchstone for Murderbot’s fragile sense of self as it tries to figure out its place in a galaxy-spanning civilization that refuses to recognize it as a person. (Editor’s note: This review contains mild spoilers for All Systems Red and Artificial Condition, the first two volumes of The Murderbot Diaries.

Murderbot rogue protocol