Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Tordotcom (2018), 158 pages
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: The third thrilling book in the increasingly popular Murderbot Diaries, which began with All Systems Red. SciFi's favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is. And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good. Martha Wells' Rogue Protocol is the third in the Murderbot Diaries series, starring a human-like android who keeps getting sucked back into adventure after adventure, though it just wants to be left alone, away from humanity and small talk. Read Rogue Protocol and find out why Hugo Award winner Ann Leckie wrote "I love Murderbot!".… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bragan
The third installment in Martha Wells' Murderbot series. This time Murderbot investigates an abandoned terraforming station that is, in fact, neither abandoned nor actually a terraforming station, and once more finds itself in a dangerous situation with some squishy humans to protect.
As usual, and
As usual, and
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unsurprisingly for a book that's only about 150 pages long, the plot is pretty slight. And the action sequences in this series might be getting a little bit same-y. But, oh, never mind that, because it's always an utter delight to see Murderbot again. I just love that snarky, emotionally confused, TV-addict cyborg so much. Seeing it again is like running into a beloved friend, and I swear every time it shows a sign of actually caring about someone -- which it does a lot, whether it understands the fact or not -- embarrassing happens to my heart. Show Less
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
In this installment of its diaries, Murderbot continues to provide evidence that its vocation isn't really dependent on its governor module. This third repetition of the series' charm seems to demonstrate the entrenchment of a formula, except for the pivot promised in the penultimate paragraph
Of the three books so far, this slightly longer one had pacing most like a Hollywood movie, complete with a bunch of explosions, double-crosses, and a heroic sacrifice. But of course it relied on the characterization and setting established in the previous volumes, and I can hardly imagine how most of this would be communicated cinematically, since the multiplex inhuman sensorium of the construct is one of the important ingredients of the narrative.
I'm still enjoying the series, but it needs to break form in the next book to keep my attention.
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(pardon the passel of plosives). As at the finish of the previous book, the "conclusion" to this one implied a discovery by Murderbot not yet shared with the reader--and the earlier one has been deferred as well. Call it a protracted epistemological cliffhanger? Of the three books so far, this slightly longer one had pacing most like a Hollywood movie, complete with a bunch of explosions, double-crosses, and a heroic sacrifice. But of course it relied on the characterization and setting established in the previous volumes, and I can hardly imagine how most of this would be communicated cinematically, since the multiplex inhuman sensorium of the construct is one of the important ingredients of the narrative.
I'm still enjoying the series, but it needs to break form in the next book to keep my attention.
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LibraryThing member caedocyon
I really liked this, but was not as head-over-heels for it as the previous one, which helped me realize that my favorite thing in this book was the relationship between Murderbot and ART, and Murderbot's and ART's relationships with their entertainments. (Tho the relationship with Miki fills the
NEXT READ: I got a lot more out of the Miki/Murderbot relationship this time. Totally confusing emotions of resentfulness/rage/disgust at someone who didn't do anything but be sort of like you only more innocent and trusting, yup. Do you ever read something and the author leaves you to fill in the gaps in the narrative like it should be obvious and you can't? I feel like Murderbot here, I don't know what those emotions are or what they are for and I would like someone to explain, please. I'm aware Murderbot would like that too, which makes it less frustrating.
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same slot in this book, furthering the exploration of the range of different relationships between different kinds of AI and humans. Hm.)NEXT READ: I got a lot more out of the Miki/Murderbot relationship this time. Totally confusing emotions of resentfulness/rage/disgust at someone who didn't do anything but be sort of like you only more innocent and trusting, yup. Do you ever read something and the author leaves you to fill in the gaps in the narrative like it should be obvious and you can't? I feel like Murderbot here, I don't know what those emotions are or what they are for and I would like someone to explain, please. I'm aware Murderbot would like that too, which makes it less frustrating.
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
Lightweight adventure, third in the series of novellas about a killer robot with no governor to keep it from killing people but a conscience that does an even better job. While engaging and hard to put down, there's little to remember either, other than the robot's snarky first person narration.
Fun, and that's not such a bad thing.
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Fun, and that's not such a bad thing.
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LibraryThing member antao
“I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”
In “Rogue Protocol” by Martha Wells
Is the SecUnit Pro- or Anti-Wittgenstein?
Wittgenstein is often cited by believers in the possibility of more or less "sentient" AI. He is cited because he seems
So far, so good Martha: Pro-Wittgenstein.
But nonetheless there is good reason to believe that though they are distributed, implicit, and emergent, what these machines develop are indeed representations of statistical properties and classificatory schema gleaned from iterative presentations of data. The machines could even be given the ability to inspect or "represent" these representations; and it is this level of meta-representation which is often said to be necessary (and sufficient?) for self-awareness. Meta-representations are used in human and machine cognition for example in "chunking" and classifying operations. Sentience does not necessarily follow from the capacity to represent one's representations. What does follow from meta-representation is a "picture picture", precisely what Wittgenstein warned us to be wary of when "inspecting" our own perceptual/conceptual processes.
Do you remember what Wittgenstein called "seeing-as"? We can see the duck-rabbit as a duck or a rabbit, and context can make us more likely to perceive one or the other (e.g. the rabbit aspect apparently jumps out at more viewers around about Easter time). Now in all likelihood a machine could be trained to use contextual cues for seeing the duck or the rabbit contextually. But this is simply contextualisation by data addition. The machine is trained to take proximate data points into account when it makes it decision about what it is "seeing". It is not "true" seeing-as, as there is nothing in the machine which sees the seeing. Even meta-representations in a machine are just hierarchically structured representations. They are the "picture picture" without the picturer. That’s what the Murderbot embodies in a fictionalised way. I imagine that the microwave doesn't know that three minutes have passed - but actually neither do we. What we get via Wells is that we feel the Murderbot knows. We have the sense of knowing that it/she really knows. I have read arguments saying "oh but our sense of ourselves as knowing subjects is illusory" - in what sense (excuse the homophone) is this the case? Our sense of self is said to be an illusion, but still we have it. Can we not equally say that the Murderbot’s self just is its sense of itself/herself? Since the Murderbot undeniably experiences a sense of self then what does it mean to say that that sense is itself illusory? How can an experience of an experience be illusory? This time we’ve got Miki to give the Murderbot some further contextualisation of self which is quite different from what happened in the last two installments (good fiction works extremely well by using opposites.) The Murderbot’s experiences of the external world can be illusory because its/her senses can be deceived so that they don't correspond to the "objective" reality of what they appear to represent it/her. Yet, experience is already inherently subjective. How can we compare it to itself and say that the comparison is false or even falsifiable? How can the Murderbot’s experience of the Murderbot’s experience be anything other than the Murderbot’s experience?
You see, it’s through the Murderbot’s snarky internal monologue that we can experience its/her experience and it’s just how things seem to it/her, no more and no less. It makes no sense to say that it/she was mistaken when it seemed to it/her that this is how things seemed to it/her, or that in fact they seemed some other way, only to it/her it seemed that they seemed how they seemed... Isn't this just marvellous that we can get this kind of thing out of a SF story?
NB: “It” is the personal pronoun the Murderbot uses to refer to itself/herself. In my mind, the Murderbot is a she. Not sure why. It just feels like that.
In “Rogue Protocol” by Martha Wells
Is the SecUnit Pro- or Anti-Wittgenstein?
Wittgenstein is often cited by believers in the possibility of more or less "sentient" AI. He is cited because he seems
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to re-cast our understanding of what we mean when we talk about our own sentience, and by making ourselves seem more machine-like we can make machines seem more human-like. But I think this is a misapplication of Wittgenstein's thought. Wittgenstein objected to the "picture picture", i.e. to the way that we represent ourselves as having representations inside our heads, the way that we picture ourselves as viewers of an endless cinematic reel of internal pictures of the external world. According to Wittgenstein we don't need these internal representations, as our "view" of the world is located in the world, which is actively present to our sense when we interact with it. Nor do we need representations inside our heads of the "rules" which govern these interactions. When we "follow a rule" we don't necessarily have a representation in our minds of what that rule "means", rather the "meaning" of the rule is demonstrated in its practice. We can say that we have "understood" a rule when we our performance accords with it, and yet we may not be able to give an algorithmic description of what we have successfully performed. Modern machine-learning is more Wittgensteinian in this sense than older rule-based attempts to create AI (e.g. think of Prolog). We have developed pattern recognition systems which respond to statistical features of data, without requiring explicit descriptions of the data features, and without sets of programmatic instructions telling the machine how to group or analyse or otherwise process component features into identifiable categories. These machines are not merely rule-following; at least any "rules" which they do follow were not pre-given programmatically, nor are they easily inspectable even by the system's programmers.So far, so good Martha: Pro-Wittgenstein.
But nonetheless there is good reason to believe that though they are distributed, implicit, and emergent, what these machines develop are indeed representations of statistical properties and classificatory schema gleaned from iterative presentations of data. The machines could even be given the ability to inspect or "represent" these representations; and it is this level of meta-representation which is often said to be necessary (and sufficient?) for self-awareness. Meta-representations are used in human and machine cognition for example in "chunking" and classifying operations. Sentience does not necessarily follow from the capacity to represent one's representations. What does follow from meta-representation is a "picture picture", precisely what Wittgenstein warned us to be wary of when "inspecting" our own perceptual/conceptual processes.
Do you remember what Wittgenstein called "seeing-as"? We can see the duck-rabbit as a duck or a rabbit, and context can make us more likely to perceive one or the other (e.g. the rabbit aspect apparently jumps out at more viewers around about Easter time). Now in all likelihood a machine could be trained to use contextual cues for seeing the duck or the rabbit contextually. But this is simply contextualisation by data addition. The machine is trained to take proximate data points into account when it makes it decision about what it is "seeing". It is not "true" seeing-as, as there is nothing in the machine which sees the seeing. Even meta-representations in a machine are just hierarchically structured representations. They are the "picture picture" without the picturer. That’s what the Murderbot embodies in a fictionalised way. I imagine that the microwave doesn't know that three minutes have passed - but actually neither do we. What we get via Wells is that we feel the Murderbot knows. We have the sense of knowing that it/she really knows. I have read arguments saying "oh but our sense of ourselves as knowing subjects is illusory" - in what sense (excuse the homophone) is this the case? Our sense of self is said to be an illusion, but still we have it. Can we not equally say that the Murderbot’s self just is its sense of itself/herself? Since the Murderbot undeniably experiences a sense of self then what does it mean to say that that sense is itself illusory? How can an experience of an experience be illusory? This time we’ve got Miki to give the Murderbot some further contextualisation of self which is quite different from what happened in the last two installments (good fiction works extremely well by using opposites.) The Murderbot’s experiences of the external world can be illusory because its/her senses can be deceived so that they don't correspond to the "objective" reality of what they appear to represent it/her. Yet, experience is already inherently subjective. How can we compare it to itself and say that the comparison is false or even falsifiable? How can the Murderbot’s experience of the Murderbot’s experience be anything other than the Murderbot’s experience?
You see, it’s through the Murderbot’s snarky internal monologue that we can experience its/her experience and it’s just how things seem to it/her, no more and no less. It makes no sense to say that it/she was mistaken when it seemed to it/her that this is how things seemed to it/her, or that in fact they seemed some other way, only to it/her it seemed that they seemed how they seemed... Isn't this just marvellous that we can get this kind of thing out of a SF story?
NB: “It” is the personal pronoun the Murderbot uses to refer to itself/herself. In my mind, the Murderbot is a she. Not sure why. It just feels like that.
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LibraryThing member SamSattler
I can’t help but feel a little confused by the third book of Martha Wells’s “Murderbot Diaries.” It’s not the plot or the characters that confuse me, though. It’s more a question of why the whole book - all 158 pages of it - was not simply tacked onto the ending of the previous book –
Murderbot is still trying to gather evidence against GrayCris Corporation, the cut-throat company that is so willing to murder its competitors in the name of increased profits. Murderbot is still officially a rogue SecUnit on the run, and as such, he’s forced to live in the shadows. Still, most often by teaming up with other artificial-intelligence creations, he manages to make his way from planet to planet without being captured.
That doesn’t mean that it’s been easy, or that it’s going to be, because Murderbot’s big weakness keeps getting him in trouble. He still has a soft spot in his “heart” for humans, and he keeps stumbling into situations where several rather naïve human scientists have to be protected from the evil GrayCris Corporation. And, since Murderbot is heading in the same direction, he finds it impossible to keep himself from taking the humans under his wing – whether they always realize it or not.
But all of that is part of the problem I had with Rogue Protocol. Wells assumes that all of her readers are already going to have Murderbot’s backstory, so she doesn’t spend much time developing the book’s newest characters (granted, they are only passing through, anyway) or the backstory. Consequently, Murderbot does not come across as nearly the compassionate and ironically funny character he is in the first two books in the series. And then there’s yet another claustrophobic jaunt down long hallways dotted with dangerous intersections, as Murderbot frantically tries to get his humans to safety while fighting one combat bot after another.
The best part of Rogue Protocol is Miki, the little bot that just wants a friend like himself. Even as Miki is recklessly is throwing his body into every battle alongside Murderbot (despite being hopelessly overmatched), he’s more concerned with hurting Murderbot’s feelings than with the danger to himself. He loves his humans, and they love him, but Miki truly treasures his first friendship with someone “like him.”
Bottom Line: It seems that the publisher of the Murderbot Diaries made more of a business decision than a literary one with the way the company handled Rogue Protocol. This one could, and probably should, have been the second half of its predecessor, Artificial Condition, even though it would have probably seemed a little repetitive that way. As it was, two Murderbot Diary novellas and one Murderbot Diary novel were published in 2018, rather than what could easily have been two novels.
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also of about 150 pages – and published as the novel it was meant to be. As it is, Rogue Protocol breaks almost no new ground either plot-wise or character-wise, and I doubt that I would have stayed with it all the way through if I had picked it up as a standalone novella. It was tough enough, at times, to do that anyway because I started to feel as if I were reading a story I had already read, and that only the names of most of the characters had changed. Murderbot is still trying to gather evidence against GrayCris Corporation, the cut-throat company that is so willing to murder its competitors in the name of increased profits. Murderbot is still officially a rogue SecUnit on the run, and as such, he’s forced to live in the shadows. Still, most often by teaming up with other artificial-intelligence creations, he manages to make his way from planet to planet without being captured.
That doesn’t mean that it’s been easy, or that it’s going to be, because Murderbot’s big weakness keeps getting him in trouble. He still has a soft spot in his “heart” for humans, and he keeps stumbling into situations where several rather naïve human scientists have to be protected from the evil GrayCris Corporation. And, since Murderbot is heading in the same direction, he finds it impossible to keep himself from taking the humans under his wing – whether they always realize it or not.
But all of that is part of the problem I had with Rogue Protocol. Wells assumes that all of her readers are already going to have Murderbot’s backstory, so she doesn’t spend much time developing the book’s newest characters (granted, they are only passing through, anyway) or the backstory. Consequently, Murderbot does not come across as nearly the compassionate and ironically funny character he is in the first two books in the series. And then there’s yet another claustrophobic jaunt down long hallways dotted with dangerous intersections, as Murderbot frantically tries to get his humans to safety while fighting one combat bot after another.
The best part of Rogue Protocol is Miki, the little bot that just wants a friend like himself. Even as Miki is recklessly is throwing his body into every battle alongside Murderbot (despite being hopelessly overmatched), he’s more concerned with hurting Murderbot’s feelings than with the danger to himself. He loves his humans, and they love him, but Miki truly treasures his first friendship with someone “like him.”
Bottom Line: It seems that the publisher of the Murderbot Diaries made more of a business decision than a literary one with the way the company handled Rogue Protocol. This one could, and probably should, have been the second half of its predecessor, Artificial Condition, even though it would have probably seemed a little repetitive that way. As it was, two Murderbot Diary novellas and one Murderbot Diary novel were published in 2018, rather than what could easily have been two novels.
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LibraryThing member lisapeet
Another Murderbot story—as I described it the series very broadly to my husband, it's sf for people who don't like sf. I do like sf, actually, though maybe not usually the kind of space opera that Wells riffs on here, so more credit to her—and I like how it's just techy enough to be cool but I
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can still understand everything. And, as every single person who has ever liked this series says, Murderbot is a great character. I do wish the installments weren't separate books needing to be borrowed, but maybe the suspense adds to the enjoyment. Show Less
LibraryThing member ftbooklover
Even when Murderbot leaves RaviHyral knowing that it isn't completely responsible for killing the people there, the staff is still dead, leaving Murderbot depressed. It decides to track down evidence of wrongdoing by GrayCris in the aftermath of the incident at DeltFall and send it to Dr. Mensah
In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot continues to search for what it wants and to find a purpose. Although it is still difficult for Murderbot to interact with humans, it feels protective of those it runs across, blaming its feelings on previous programming. By periodically breaking the fourth wall, Murderbot brings the reader more deeply into its thoughts, making it easy to empathize with the character. Another good entry in the Murderbot Diaries series.
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who is about to try to bring them down in court. This leads it to Milu, a station owned by GrayCris where illegal alien tech harvesting might have been occurring under the guise of terraform project. When Murderbot arrives at the nearly empty station, it meets Miki, an innocent bot that convinces Murderbot to once again protect clients it doesn't want, but even Miki can't predict how important Murderbot will become to all of them.In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot continues to search for what it wants and to find a purpose. Although it is still difficult for Murderbot to interact with humans, it feels protective of those it runs across, blaming its feelings on previous programming. By periodically breaking the fourth wall, Murderbot brings the reader more deeply into its thoughts, making it easy to empathize with the character. Another good entry in the Murderbot Diaries series.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
This is the third of a series of science fiction novellas that are at the same time violent, full of non-stop danger and adventure, and humorous meditations on existence and human nature. The protagonist, part robot with organic parts, calls itself Murderbot, because of an incident in its past for
In this installment, Murderbot hitches a ride through space to Milu, the planet where he thinks he can gather evidence to help Dr. Mensah, who we met in the first book of the series. In the first book, Dr. Mensah’s group (and Murderbot’s clients) were attacked by the GrayCris Corporation, and now GrayCris is being investigated. As Murderbot explains, GrayCris was willing to kill bunches of humans for exclusive (and illegal) access to the mineral and possibly biological remains of sentient alien civilizations. Dr. Mensah needs proof of GrayCris’s nefarious operations, and Murderbot thinks he can find it at Milu. It would not only help her, but perhaps distract journalists from their concurrent preoccupation with “that stray SecUnit” - i.e., Murderbot.
So Murderbot contrived a scheme to get to Milu, pretending to be a Security Consultant for a new group of clients headed that way. During the process, Murderbot gets into the usual existence-threatening scrapes, and encounters the now-usual moral dilemmas, which in truth, no SecUnit should be having.
Evaluation: Murderbot has no gender, but I think of it as a “he”; perhaps that is just a reflection of my personal bias. No one in the books have that same problem. They are of all races and genders and don’t tend to categorize any others, whether human or not.
Murderbot has a variety of super-tech capabilities, but seems very human, indeed. It is more powerful than Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character, although reminiscent of him in ways, but amusing, seems more “human” than Jack. Best of all, Murderbot’s dry sense of humor, sardonic wit, and constant existential angst are supremely entertaining. I love this series!
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which it wasn’t guilty, but the appellation stuck. In any event, Murderbot is a security robot, or SecBot, designed to protect its clients - who are humans - from any threats. But Murderbot as gone “rogue,” having hacked its controlling module so that it now has free will. Murderbot would like nothing better than to spend its time watching all the space adventure series it has downloaded, but still can’t resist the pull to rescue humans from all the scrapes they continually get themselves into.In this installment, Murderbot hitches a ride through space to Milu, the planet where he thinks he can gather evidence to help Dr. Mensah, who we met in the first book of the series. In the first book, Dr. Mensah’s group (and Murderbot’s clients) were attacked by the GrayCris Corporation, and now GrayCris is being investigated. As Murderbot explains, GrayCris was willing to kill bunches of humans for exclusive (and illegal) access to the mineral and possibly biological remains of sentient alien civilizations. Dr. Mensah needs proof of GrayCris’s nefarious operations, and Murderbot thinks he can find it at Milu. It would not only help her, but perhaps distract journalists from their concurrent preoccupation with “that stray SecUnit” - i.e., Murderbot.
So Murderbot contrived a scheme to get to Milu, pretending to be a Security Consultant for a new group of clients headed that way. During the process, Murderbot gets into the usual existence-threatening scrapes, and encounters the now-usual moral dilemmas, which in truth, no SecUnit should be having.
Evaluation: Murderbot has no gender, but I think of it as a “he”; perhaps that is just a reflection of my personal bias. No one in the books have that same problem. They are of all races and genders and don’t tend to categorize any others, whether human or not.
Murderbot has a variety of super-tech capabilities, but seems very human, indeed. It is more powerful than Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character, although reminiscent of him in ways, but amusing, seems more “human” than Jack. Best of all, Murderbot’s dry sense of humor, sardonic wit, and constant existential angst are supremely entertaining. I love this series!
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LibraryThing member MillieHennessy
I friggen love this series! I love Murderbot's personality - a mix of anxiety, social awkwardness, annoyance at human behavior, the desire to protect the good ones, and harm the bad. This installment had plenty of great action and drama. And that ending! I'll read a million of these novellas.
LibraryThing member nkmunn
This unique protagonist makes me laugh and makes me realize what a great vehicle such a construct is for an SF author - for even though we readers must read one word and then the next, this character can pereceive, do, and impact multiple scenarios concurrently. What a gift, what a terrific
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author’s playground, what fun it continues to be to read of this droll misanthrope’s adventures. Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
Oh, Murderbot!
Oh my poor, sweet Murderbot. Your pain is real to me because Author Wells is skilled in the art of inflicting pain in innocent readers. Best of the three stories by a good margin.
Murderbot continues its quest to fully understand the horrible life it's led as a slave, one sentient
I didn’t have the combat stealth module anyway (I had never been upgraded with it, probably due to...the whole “killing all the clients” thing, go figure)...
***
Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
***
The core cutter had powered up and accessed my feed to deliver a canned warning and a handy set of directions. Why yes, I did want to disengage the safety protocols, thanks for asking.
The issue at hand this time, the reason Murderbot sweet-talked a fairly basic pilot bot into allowing it aboard a human-infested transport to a far outpost on the Corporation Rim...pause to appreciate that as Murderbot's quest for information (what humans call answers) to process what and why it became Murderbot in the first place that it travels in space beyond the reach of the corporation-first norms into low-security humans-first territory...is to collect more data on GrayCris. These corporate malefactors ("We were talking about GrayCris here, whose company motto seemed to be “profit by killing everybody and taking their stuff,” thinks Murderbot) are in the middle of a lawsuit war with Dr. Mensah and the entire Preservation team that bought Murderbot in [All Systems Red].
The discoveries Murderbot makes are, well, unsurprising in that malefeasance and lawbreaking are involved. They are appalling in that corporate skulduggery explicitly involves murdering people to save the corporation money. Author Wells doesn't look on a safe, secure, "prosperous" world with no privacy and less respect for human dignity with the eye of faith. She sees what she sees and reports back to us. I mean, it's all a story, right, but it's not based on nothing. Is it.
So Murderbot visits beyond the Corporation Rim to discover what it suspects is bombshell information. Murderbot wants to help the human that bought it not in order to use it but in order to stop it being used. Murderbot applied its sentience to leave, it's not proper to say "escape," Dr. Mensah to begin its quest for sapience without knowing in advance that...
...apparently once you start, you can’t just stop. I wasn’t going to just send the geo pod data to Dr. Mensah. I was taking it to her personally. I was going back. Then I laid down on the floor and started Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon from episode one.
Murderbot's heading home. Family needs it. And Family comes first.
Oh my poor, sweet Murderbot. Your pain is real to me because Author Wells is skilled in the art of inflicting pain in innocent readers. Best of the three stories by a good margin.
Murderbot continues its quest to fully understand the horrible life it's led as a slave, one sentient
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enough to be autonomous but still able to be customized to perform different complex security functions (which implies being programmable, therefore malleable, therefore manipulable in the vilest of ways) but not allowed to develop its sapience. Author Wells does her usual bang-up job of making Murderbot an excellent companion on a picaresque quest to install sapience into its systems:I didn’t have the combat stealth module anyway (I had never been upgraded with it, probably due to...the whole “killing all the clients” thing, go figure)...
***
Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
***
The core cutter had powered up and accessed my feed to deliver a canned warning and a handy set of directions. Why yes, I did want to disengage the safety protocols, thanks for asking.
The issue at hand this time, the reason Murderbot sweet-talked a fairly basic pilot bot into allowing it aboard a human-infested transport to a far outpost on the Corporation Rim...pause to appreciate that as Murderbot's quest for information (what humans call answers) to process what and why it became Murderbot in the first place that it travels in space beyond the reach of the corporation-first norms into low-security humans-first territory...is to collect more data on GrayCris. These corporate malefactors ("We were talking about GrayCris here, whose company motto seemed to be “profit by killing everybody and taking their stuff,” thinks Murderbot) are in the middle of a lawsuit war with Dr. Mensah and the entire Preservation team that bought Murderbot in [All Systems Red].
The discoveries Murderbot makes are, well, unsurprising in that malefeasance and lawbreaking are involved. They are appalling in that corporate skulduggery explicitly involves murdering people to save the corporation money. Author Wells doesn't look on a safe, secure, "prosperous" world with no privacy and less respect for human dignity with the eye of faith. She sees what she sees and reports back to us. I mean, it's all a story, right, but it's not based on nothing. Is it.
So Murderbot visits beyond the Corporation Rim to discover what it suspects is bombshell information. Murderbot wants to help the human that bought it not in order to use it but in order to stop it being used. Murderbot applied its sentience to leave, it's not proper to say "escape," Dr. Mensah to begin its quest for sapience without knowing in advance that...
...apparently once you start, you can’t just stop. I wasn’t going to just send the geo pod data to Dr. Mensah. I was taking it to her personally. I was going back. Then I laid down on the floor and started Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon from episode one.
Murderbot's heading home. Family needs it. And Family comes first.
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
Novella part 3. Picks up from the end on of 2 with murderbot deciding perhaps it could learn something useful about GreyCris's corporate evil-doing by investigating a small planet out on the Rim. There's a team already there, so all murderbot needs to do is tag along. It's somewhat surprised to
The interactions with the pet robot are probably the best part of this novella, murderbot realising that humans and robots can have quite complicated relationships even when it doesn't really want to acknowledge it's capabilities regarding emotion and relationships. There's a lot of ret-conning of it's abilities and grating of special powers technology wise, especially in hacking other systems that isn't very believable.
Short, fun, but best regarded as part of a novel that contains all four short stories in one.
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find that the team have a 'pet robot' with them, but manages to convince it that it's also a friend, with a large amount of internal grimacing and sarcastic internal notes. Of course GreyCris has left a presence behind, and so the rest of the short novella is a lot of running around an dodging things. For the format it's probably appropriate that it's taken on trust the author knows where all the participants are relative to each other and the reader doesn't have to know or understand.The interactions with the pet robot are probably the best part of this novella, murderbot realising that humans and robots can have quite complicated relationships even when it doesn't really want to acknowledge it's capabilities regarding emotion and relationships. There's a lot of ret-conning of it's abilities and grating of special powers technology wise, especially in hacking other systems that isn't very believable.
Short, fun, but best regarded as part of a novel that contains all four short stories in one.
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LibraryThing member LisCarey
Murderbot is still in pursuit of evidence against GrayCris, because awkward questions are being asked about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is. Murderbot really needs those questions to go away, permanently.
So it's off to the site of a failed terraforming project GrayCris was involved in, where very
That's not how it works out. Instead, Murderbot finds itself protecting Dr. Dawn Abenna, her "pet bot," Micky, and the rest of her team. Abenna's team already has hired human security consultants, but Murderbot doesn't think anyone should rely on human security consultants rather than SecUnits, and, well, beyond that its reasons may not be entirely clear to itself. There is the problem of keeping Micky quiet about its presence and activities, but it knows there are different solutions to that problem...
Murderbot continues to be a complete delight. Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
So it's off to the site of a failed terraforming project GrayCris was involved in, where very
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strange things happened and may still be happening. Quietly antisocial Murderbot would prefer just to stay in its storage unit all the way there, watching its downloaded media, get the job done promptly on arrival, and leave.That's not how it works out. Instead, Murderbot finds itself protecting Dr. Dawn Abenna, her "pet bot," Micky, and the rest of her team. Abenna's team already has hired human security consultants, but Murderbot doesn't think anyone should rely on human security consultants rather than SecUnits, and, well, beyond that its reasons may not be entirely clear to itself. There is the problem of keeping Micky quiet about its presence and activities, but it knows there are different solutions to that problem...
Murderbot continues to be a complete delight. Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
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LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
I just love the Murderbot! This is the last installment of the Murderbot diaries and it's just as good as the first two. The other reviewers do a great job of telling what to expect in this book, so I will just say, "read all of these Murderbot diaries, you won't be sorry!
LibraryThing member tottman
The brilliance of The Murderbot Diaries lies both in the creation of the central character, Murderbot, as well as the carefully constructed stories. Each novella deepens your understanding of Murderbot while also delivering a self-contained, action-driven plot that is complete on its own while
In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot continues to pull on the threads indicting the GrayCris Corporation. Murderbot’s own existence is less of a secret than it once was which is drawing unwanted attention. Finding answers is leading Murderbot to more remote locations which increases the danger of discovery. Murderbot heads to a suspicious abandoned terraforming operation in search of information that would indict GrayCris. The search turns up unexpected discoveries, as well as unanticipated danger.
Murderbot is such a wonderful character. A non-human character who is more than the limits of its programming who, despite an ongoing desire to just enjoy its television shows, desires to be more, to know itself and who has developed a moral compass that defies simple logic. Rogue Protocol introduces us to a new set of human characters along with the humanoid robot Miki. Once again the supporting AI characters in these books defy expectations with their complexity and, ironically, their humanity.
Rogue Protocol is another great entry in the series. Plenty of action, a great story, and thoughtful character creation and development. I can’t wait to see where the next novella takes us and I’m beyond excited to learn that a full-length Murderbot novel is in our future. This is a great book not to be missed by Murderbot fans and if you aren’t already a fan, why not? Pick up these books! You won’t be disappointed. Highly recommended.
I received an advance copy of this book from the publishe
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furthering the central story and introducing new and interesting characters.In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot continues to pull on the threads indicting the GrayCris Corporation. Murderbot’s own existence is less of a secret than it once was which is drawing unwanted attention. Finding answers is leading Murderbot to more remote locations which increases the danger of discovery. Murderbot heads to a suspicious abandoned terraforming operation in search of information that would indict GrayCris. The search turns up unexpected discoveries, as well as unanticipated danger.
Murderbot is such a wonderful character. A non-human character who is more than the limits of its programming who, despite an ongoing desire to just enjoy its television shows, desires to be more, to know itself and who has developed a moral compass that defies simple logic. Rogue Protocol introduces us to a new set of human characters along with the humanoid robot Miki. Once again the supporting AI characters in these books defy expectations with their complexity and, ironically, their humanity.
Rogue Protocol is another great entry in the series. Plenty of action, a great story, and thoughtful character creation and development. I can’t wait to see where the next novella takes us and I’m beyond excited to learn that a full-length Murderbot novel is in our future. This is a great book not to be missed by Murderbot fans and if you aren’t already a fan, why not? Pick up these books! You won’t be disappointed. Highly recommended.
I received an advance copy of this book from the publishe
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LibraryThing member amanda4242
Not bad, but the plot is basically the same as it was in the two previous novellas.
LibraryThing member ladycato
I received a galley of this book through NetGalley.
I love me some Murderbot. The first book absolutely charmed me with its balance of smart action and know-how with a sentient security bot with an obsession with human entertainment shows. I dove into this third novella, Rogue Protocol, having not
To my joy, it was very easy to follow along with Murderbot. Actually, I think someone could start at this book and they would be able to follow the story quite well. I was recently reminded of the term "competence porn," and I think that's an appropriate term for why I enjoy these novellas so much. Murderbot is fantastic at their job, and that's a joy to read. The actions flow steady and fast, full of sci-fi twists, and Murderbot's exasperated frustration and obsession with humans made me smile often as I read.
I love me some Murderbot. The first book absolutely charmed me with its balance of smart action and know-how with a sentient security bot with an obsession with human entertainment shows. I dove into this third novella, Rogue Protocol, having not
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read the second. I wanted to judge how easy it was to resume the series at a later point.To my joy, it was very easy to follow along with Murderbot. Actually, I think someone could start at this book and they would be able to follow the story quite well. I was recently reminded of the term "competence porn," and I think that's an appropriate term for why I enjoy these novellas so much. Murderbot is fantastic at their job, and that's a joy to read. The actions flow steady and fast, full of sci-fi twists, and Murderbot's exasperated frustration and obsession with humans made me smile often as I read.
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LibraryThing member quondame
A good solid episode in the series of short novels featuring the SecUnit with a deactivated governor who would prefer to use its freedom to watch media dramas and dislikes eye-contact. Trying to remain undetected while collecting data for the case against Grey it is noticed and suborns the perky
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human form unit Miki. Miki is deliberately annoying, and that doesn't count as a strength in the narrative. Some characterization, but the action is quite fast and thick and flow very well, but a rather large amount has to do with one AI taking over others, so secondary characters don't have any play. Show Less
LibraryThing member Herenya
The rogue SecUnit calling itself Murderbot investigates an abandoned terraforming project for evidence of wrongdoing, and crosses paths with a team investigating for their own reasons.
If there was one thing good about this situation, it was reinforcing how great my decisions to (a) hack my
This is a fast-paced, suspenseful novella. I liked how it continues Murderbot’s personal journey, working out how what it means to have agency and how to relate to others as an independent AI, and how the events sets things up for the next book. I didn’t find the story quite as delightful as the first two, perhaps because Murderbot is less attached -- and thus, I was less attached -- to those it is working with. And Murderbot is more confident about pretending to be something it is not and being part of a team.
I like that Murderbot starts quoting from its favourite serial in high-pressure situations. My favourite bits were mostly connected to Murderbot’s love of serials.
If there was one thing good about this situation, it was reinforcing how great my decisions to (a) hack my
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governor module and (b) escape were. Being a SecUnit sucked. I couldn’t wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage of hitching rides on bot-piloted transports and watching my serials.This is a fast-paced, suspenseful novella. I liked how it continues Murderbot’s personal journey, working out how what it means to have agency and how to relate to others as an independent AI, and how the events sets things up for the next book. I didn’t find the story quite as delightful as the first two, perhaps because Murderbot is less attached -- and thus, I was less attached -- to those it is working with. And Murderbot is more confident about pretending to be something it is not and being part of a team.
I like that Murderbot starts quoting from its favourite serial in high-pressure situations. My favourite bits were mostly connected to Murderbot’s love of serials.
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LibraryThing member Shrike58
In the continuing adventures of everyone's favorite much-put-upon security droid, Murderbot, having dealt with looking into its own origins, has come up with a crafty scheme to gather evidence on the amoral corporate entity whose illegal pursuit of alien technology started this whole mess, only to
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find another group of researchers who need rescued. If this sounds familiar don't worry, Martha Wells, has come up with a way to up the ante of the story; a worthy addition to the continuing series. Show Less
LibraryThing member beserene
Aaand more Murderbot! I love every one of these sci-fi novellas and this one is just as brutal, emotional, delightful, and engaging as the previous installments. If anything, this one moved even faster and yet in very satisfying ways toward the larger conclusion of the whole series -- but then, we
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cut off with a hint of what's next and have to WAIT for the final book! Ack! It should tell you a lot about how great this series is that my main thought can only be... more Murderbot, please! Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
The story continues in this third installment. Another mystery - and yet they all seem connected on some level...Murderbot struggles to deal with his human tendencies and his past. Such delicate, fragile humans that he ends up having to take care of along his way! Staying a few steps ahead of the
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humans seems to be the only way. Show Less
LibraryThing member Carolesrandomlife
This was another great installment in the series! These stories have been a lot of fun and I have found that each one tells a really big story in a rather small number of pages. Murderbot is on another mission in this installment that kept me glued to the pages once again.
Murderbot wants to find
I really enjoyed seeing Murderbot interact with Miki who was a very different kind of bot. Murderbot has seen people at their worst and expects for problems to occur while Miki has been treated like a trusted member of the group and seems rather innocent in its manner of thinking. I really enjoyed being inside Murderbot's head as it worked to process a solution for the problem at hand. I can't wait to start reading the next installment.
Murderbot wants to find
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out what is really going on with the GrayCris Corporation. The SecUnit poses as a security consultant when it encounters a group of people off to explore an abandoned facility. The group has a bot, Miki, that they consider to be their friends which is somewhat confusing (and annoying) to Murderbot. Of course, things go wrong and there is lots of action and excitement as Murderbot works to help save the day.I really enjoyed seeing Murderbot interact with Miki who was a very different kind of bot. Murderbot has seen people at their worst and expects for problems to occur while Miki has been treated like a trusted member of the group and seems rather innocent in its manner of thinking. I really enjoyed being inside Murderbot's head as it worked to process a solution for the problem at hand. I can't wait to start reading the next installment.
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LibraryThing member bookappeal
This one got a little too techy for me but I loved Murderbots interactions with other bots and his continuing character development. Still a great deal of fun!
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Novella — 2019)
Language
Original publication date
2018-08-07
ISBN
9781250191786