Ratings848
Average rating4.2
Uh! I love this character! This is the 2nd book in the murderbot books and the main character, who I realise now doesn't have a name (nor gender as it's a bot) is so fun to read.
The murderbot is so dry and grumpy and so different from previous characters I've read in sci-fi.
The first book definitely works as a stand alone, and although there's a self contained story in this second book, it definitely carries through a decent number of references to the earlier story that I'd not recommend reading this on it's own.
Since the books are only around 160 pages, I'm moving right on to the next installment and looking forward to it already.
Book 2 was very good. Engaging and fast. Loved ART. Robots interacting interests me more than j thought. Feeling bad for the Sexbots. Curious where book 3 will take me.
Alternate Title: The Adventures of a Rogue SecUnit and Asshole Research Transport
This was once again super fun. Murderbot is now trying to act like an Augmented Human and learns various mannerisms like sighing!!?!
- Murderbot meets a transport unit it names ART (Asshole Research Transport)
The ongoing tale of poor Murderbot catching feelings over dumb humans. I love them so much.
I was gonna wait for my library ecopy of this book to arrive (where it has a couple of weeks waitlist) but I was just too moody to choose something else, and decided to pick up the audiobook instead. And that was an excellent choice because I ended up liking this much more than I thought I would.
I didn't think I would love Murderbot more but I surely did. It's trying to navigate its new life, free from all obligations and trying to figure out what it wants to do. I think all the tv show binging it does is making it much more vulnerable than it wants to be, feeling sympathetic towards humans, wanting to protect them and feeling awful when it's unable to. It's such an endearing SecUnit construct and I love seeing it evolve now that it can make its own decisions. And the introduction of another character ART which is a much more sophisticated and powerful transport vessel was just what I needed. Their sarcastic banter is hilariously entertaining and the way Murderbot comes to rely on ART though it doesn't want to is a bit of a treat to watch. And both of their tv show binging habits and reactions to what happens to their favorite characters is so similar to me that I just couldn't stop smiling. I never though I would relate so much to AIs.
Just like the first novella, the plot isn't very important here though we do get some insight into Murderbot's backstory which was interesting. The theme of Murderbot encountering and helping another human crew continues and the author cleverly uses these interactions to show how Murderbot is changing. We also get to know a bit more of the world and especially how interplanetary transportation works, but not much more - but I surely hope the world is expanded upon in the later books. The writing is funny and very easy to follow, and engaging enough that I didn't wanna put it down. The audiobook narration is also perfect, and I thought the narrator did a brilliant job bringing the voice of Murderbot to life, particularly the sarcastic tone of its banter with ART.
To conclude, I'm having a blast reading these novellas and if you wanna read some thoroughly entertaining sci-fi, you should totally pick up this series. It has a tv obsessed Murderbot which is shy, doesn't want to but cares about humans and has anxiety and depression, and ironically is full of heart - what's not to love.
Detective Murderbot
Our beloved murderbot tries to blend in the society and struggles with new kinds of anxiety. There’s a lot of mystery and detective work here and just one action scene.
The simplicity of descriptions is kinda refreshing after most other books and reminds me of some classic sci-fi like Stainless Steel Rat. But there’s a bit too much recapping of the previous book, especially considering that they’re both pretty short.
Also it features some new, interesting sci-fi concepts like future forms of money and communication between bots. And the ending is fine, leading to the next adventure.
Wish it was a bit longer, but I'm still glad that it exists.
Good but not great. I have no idea how I feel about this. I'll keep reading buuuut I also got these first four novellas for free from Orbit.
I'm getting Bill Bixby Hulk vibes here and that's fine. Murderbot has a ship friend now.
I'm not familiar with scifi and usually don't gravitate towards it as a genre. I also read the first book in this series a pretty long time ago. Therefore it took me a lot by surprise that I slipped back into Murderbot mode so quickly and easily when I started on this one. The world, the setting, the characters all came rushing back to me almost as soon as I got started, which is a great sign.
Most AIs in fiction tend to have a Type: deadpan humour, making digs at humans for being slow, inconsistent, illogical, and quirky, and also speaking in an oddly detached way that hammers in the fact that they are robots.
Murderbot, though, doesn't quite align with that. The whole novella is told from his (? a gender or pronoun is never specified so this is an assumption on my part) perspective after all, so we are the most privy to his thoughts. Murderbot feels a bit like an extremely introverted human quite often, despite being literally a killing machine. All he wants to do is just curl up with his entertainment media and watch dramas all day long, and the way he shared that hobby with ART in this one was pretty damn precious.
In this installment, Murderbot makes a bit of a pilgrimage to a particular site that holds deep significance to him but which has been erased from his memory data. While I don't think we learn a whole ton of information in this book, I'm enjoying these bite-sized novellas in the way I enjoy a TV series with shorter but self-contained episodes that contribute to an overarching plot.
I'd always recommend Murderbot to anyone who enjoys sci-fi, and even to people who don't but who enjoys a quietly snarky and subtly humorous character study.
After multiple rounds of abandoning my intended to-read, I decided that the only way to get to COVID was to read like I was a teenager again: back-to-back science fiction and fantasy, preferably in serial form. Good news: in the two decades that have passed, spec fic has gotten super high-brow. Murderbot carried me through all of July. In this, second outing, despite it's best intentions, Murderbot keeps making friends. ART, arguably Murderbot's best friend, is my favorite character. Fresh off of its first human friendships (and unwilling to acknowledge them as such), Murderbot needs another bot to be friends with. And ART is not human, although charmingly a bit arrogant, and definitely more than a bit pedantic, ART is a beautiful foil to the sardonic and asocial Murderbot.
The second book in the series spools out some of the backstory hinted at in the first, but the central focus is exploring what makes a bot itself and not just any generic construct. I loved this: I think it had a lot to say about people, growth and relationships.
Ths second novella follows on from All Systems Red although it's largely separate from that earlier work - it helps to know what happened, and to have the introduction to the central character, but it's not essential to follow what's happening in this one. The time we see Murderbot digging into its own past, trying to find out what happened that led to it going rogue in the first place, and having to disguise its true nature in order to do so.
If there's a weakness, it's that the story is shorter than it could have been. Not that it's paced too rapidly, because it doesn't feel that way at all, but because questions remain open at the end that could easily have been followed up in a subsequent part of a longer novel, rather than having to wait for the next novella in the series. But that's the format we have. A plus, especially given the short length of the story, is that we do get to see a little bit more of the setting, with a ship AI being an entertaining major new character, differing from both humans and from Murderbot itself, and also a Sexbot appearing for the first time. (I like the way, incidentally, that the external gender of the Sexbot is never mentioned, it's so completely irrelevant to the character providing the narration).
I liked it, but wasn't engaged as much as I was on the first one.
The second book in the Murderbot Diaries series picks up pretty much where the previous one left off. Our introverted robot protagonist has tried to move off grid and live as an augmented human. At the same time she is searching for answers to her past.
A lot of this book was devoted to the relationship between Eden (our Muderbot) and ART (Asshole Research Transport). They make for an interesting odd couple and provide most of the interest in this story. The plot is not as tight as the first novella in this series and the end feeling is that we have not really advanced the story that much from the previous entry in the series. The writing is still entertaining and the sardonic wit of Eden and her burning desire to watch bad TV rather than do anything else give a nice gentle humour to all the proceedings.
Whilst not up to the brilliance of the first story, this is still an entertaining read, well worthy of your time. The novella format makes it easily digestible.
[b:All Systems Red 32758901 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) Martha Wells https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1484171189s/32758901.jpg 53349516] was one of my favorite reads last year, and somehow, I enjoyed this book even more! I read the first book but listened to this one on audio, narrated by Kevin R. Free, and he did an excellent job. To me, he really captured Murderbot's sense of humor.There are several interesting new characters introduced, most importantly ART, an AI who runs a transport ship. Their friendship has a shaky start, which is pretty funny. Here's Murderbot's reasoning for accepting ART's request for them to watch TV together:“If it needed me to watch the show it wanted, then it couldn't get angry and destroy my brain.” I still strongly identify with Murderbot, especially its social anxiety (or the AI equivalent) and its complete devotion to its favorite show, Sanctuary Moon, which comes up often in this book. The plot is very good, with several exciting action scenes. Murderbot is pretty introspective, but the story always moves along at a good pace. There's a complete story here, but also, Murderbot investigates the defining incident of its life. That plot is not wrapped up here. I love this series, and I probably should not have devoured the second book as soon as it came out, because I'm already impatient for book 3.
Murderbot is the best kind of friend. Knows your weaknesses, impressed by your strengths, always there for you despite the hassle.
Pages ‘n Pines Grading Scale:
5 - Amazing
4 - Really liked it
3 - Liked it
2 - Okay
1 - Didn't like
Honestly? Better than the first one! SecUnit is back baby! This time it's joined by ART (maybe even more loveable than SecUnit?) and eventually meets up with a new set of clients. The highlight of this novella is the relationship (don't call it that) ART and SecUnit develop, quickly Cementing ART as a fan favorite character.
Another equally important part of this story is the tender, protective moments SecUnit shares with his clients. It basically becomes they're “mom” for a while, helping them out on their mission while taking care of it's own business in the downtime.
Another really short and enjoyable read, I won't spoil anything for you so that you can experience what I'm talking about for myself. Just know that if you liked the first book, you'll like this one even more!
It was so entertaining! A little slow in the beginning but so enjoyable.
The dynamic between Murderbot and ART was everything!
Can't wait to continue The Murderbot Diaries.
I accidentally read the third book before the second. Murderbots recollection of Art made me go back. I definitely enjoyed this one a but more. In excited to see where Murderbot goes from here.
TL;DR
I really liked this book, in my opinion it's way better than the first one. I still miss the old characters but ART made up for it, him and Murderbot's interactions, working together solving problems was the best part of the book. The story is a bit more interesting as well. Highly enjoyable read.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
✓ - Main Story: I like this one better than the previous one, more infiltration and action. Enjoyable story.
X - Side Stories (if it applies):
✓ - Characters: I like all the characters, there wasn't anyone who I thought was annoying. ART was the best part of the book by far. The new humans are also interesting.
✓ - Setting/Ambiance: The space station they spend the mayority of the time is pretty standard in my opinion. Much more interesting than a bland planet.
✓ - Ending: Normal ending, nothing spectacular but not terrible either.
Extensive Review
Murderbot's interactions with ART were the hightlights of the book. The other group of characters were nice but I really like the cooperation of Murderbot with ART, these two are an unstopable force. Don't have much to say, I really liked this book and I can't wait to read the next one in the series.
I had a lot of issues with the first book (lack of originality, lame plot, lack of proper scifi-ness) but they were offset by the great humor and excellently done MC, so I still loved it. This time, all these lacks are still here, and all even lamer/more unoriginal, but I also got bored and the humor is in way less quantity. Plus the MC hacking everything every few pages is really unplausible and rather ridiculous. Plus the psychology is replaced with very basic philosophy and that was uninteresting too. Will not read the rest of the series and cannot recommend. Martha Wells may have good humor and excellent EQ, but a scifi writer should definitely also have imagination and stories - one book lacking them I could understand, but a second one is too much for my money (and time).