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Jun. 12th, 2020 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSomehow I never wrote up any of the Murderbot novellas when they were coming out -- I think I kept thinking "oh, well, the next one's just about to be released so I'll do a post after that once I've read it!" and this became a cycle that has persisted until, in fact, the recent release of the full-length Murderbot novel, Network Effect.
Anyway, if you've missed the Murderbot phenomenon somehow, they are a series of extremely relatable novellas-and-now-also-a-novel about a socially anxious security cyborg in a capitalist dystopia that hacks its governor module in order to watch endless serialized television while theoretically on the job. To recap:
In All Systems Red, Murderbot's peaceful if severely constrained life of serialized television-watching is regrettably interrupted by threats to its clients, and it spends the rest of the novella attempting to balance its protective instincts and growing fondness for its humans (visitors from not-a-capitalist-dystopia) with its deep desire to completely avoid all social interaction at all times.
In Artificial Condition, Murderbot seeks Truths about its Past and also makes friends with a superintelligent sentient spaceship, affectionately dubbed A.R.T. (Asshole Research Transit).
In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot attempts to intervene in some capitalist dystopia shenanigans and also tries its best to avoid making friends with a cheery bot that has somehow never encountered the negative side of human-AI relations.
In Exit Strategy, Murderbot discovers that its efforts to be helpful in previous novellas have somewhat backfired and is forced to interact with humans about whom it has feelings, and who know it, and expect things from it. The worst!
And now, in the latest and full-length book, Murderbot is forced to juggle a judgmental teen, a fight with an old friend that has not yet learned about boundaries, and an incredibly complicated plot involving corporate colonization and alien technology gone wrong.
I'll be honest: half the time I cannot follow what's actually going on in the action plots of these books, it all becomes a haze of explosions and hacking and corporate dystopiaspeak and Murderbot Shooting All The Things. Fortunately, the action plots don't really matter! What I'm here for is Murderbot having complicated feelings about AI and personhood and agency while being incredibly tsundere about the people (and robots) that it loves and this is always delivered on IN SPADES. (Most especially when interacting with other robots, I LOVE Murderbot having Complicated Feelings about other robots.) Possibly my favorite scene in the recent novel is the one where Murderbot and another AI are having an incredibly snippy fight and an unfortunately human bystander is like "Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don't have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now." Yep, that's what I'm here for, that's it in a nutshell, I'm so glad we're all on the same page.
A few other spoilery comments, not very deep, about the most recent book:
- love the reveal that A.R.T. & its people are secretly an underground resistance team. Love how nobody on the university resistance team is concerned by the fact that built an artificial intelligence powerful enough to kill all of them in the blink of an eye if it ever chose. It's OK! Skynet is their pal! They call it by a cute nickname!
- also love new SecUnit, excited for the eventual reappearance of new free SecUnit
- the complicated Mensah family and PTSD stuff is really good, I really liked that the resolution of that thread in this book is "we need some time apart or else we are going to get very codependent and it's probably not good for either of us"
- I miss Gurathin! He is my favorite human. Let someone be as much of an asshole to Murderbot as Murderbot is to everyone. (I mean A.R.T. also counts obviously but it's a different vibe.)
- it is very funny that Martha Wells wrote a book about an explicitly asexual aromantic artificial intelligence and still managed to make it OTP babyfic
Anyway, if you've missed the Murderbot phenomenon somehow, they are a series of extremely relatable novellas-and-now-also-a-novel about a socially anxious security cyborg in a capitalist dystopia that hacks its governor module in order to watch endless serialized television while theoretically on the job. To recap:
In All Systems Red, Murderbot's peaceful if severely constrained life of serialized television-watching is regrettably interrupted by threats to its clients, and it spends the rest of the novella attempting to balance its protective instincts and growing fondness for its humans (visitors from not-a-capitalist-dystopia) with its deep desire to completely avoid all social interaction at all times.
In Artificial Condition, Murderbot seeks Truths about its Past and also makes friends with a superintelligent sentient spaceship, affectionately dubbed A.R.T. (Asshole Research Transit).
In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot attempts to intervene in some capitalist dystopia shenanigans and also tries its best to avoid making friends with a cheery bot that has somehow never encountered the negative side of human-AI relations.
In Exit Strategy, Murderbot discovers that its efforts to be helpful in previous novellas have somewhat backfired and is forced to interact with humans about whom it has feelings, and who know it, and expect things from it. The worst!
And now, in the latest and full-length book, Murderbot is forced to juggle a judgmental teen, a fight with an old friend that has not yet learned about boundaries, and an incredibly complicated plot involving corporate colonization and alien technology gone wrong.
I'll be honest: half the time I cannot follow what's actually going on in the action plots of these books, it all becomes a haze of explosions and hacking and corporate dystopiaspeak and Murderbot Shooting All The Things. Fortunately, the action plots don't really matter! What I'm here for is Murderbot having complicated feelings about AI and personhood and agency while being incredibly tsundere about the people (and robots) that it loves and this is always delivered on IN SPADES. (Most especially when interacting with other robots, I LOVE Murderbot having Complicated Feelings about other robots.) Possibly my favorite scene in the recent novel is the one where Murderbot and another AI are having an incredibly snippy fight and an unfortunately human bystander is like "Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don't have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now." Yep, that's what I'm here for, that's it in a nutshell, I'm so glad we're all on the same page.
A few other spoilery comments, not very deep, about the most recent book:
- love the reveal that A.R.T. & its people are secretly an underground resistance team. Love how nobody on the university resistance team is concerned by the fact that built an artificial intelligence powerful enough to kill all of them in the blink of an eye if it ever chose. It's OK! Skynet is their pal! They call it by a cute nickname!
- also love new SecUnit, excited for the eventual reappearance of new free SecUnit
- the complicated Mensah family and PTSD stuff is really good, I really liked that the resolution of that thread in this book is "we need some time apart or else we are going to get very codependent and it's probably not good for either of us"
- I miss Gurathin! He is my favorite human. Let someone be as much of an asshole to Murderbot as Murderbot is to everyone. (I mean A.R.T. also counts obviously but it's a different vibe.)
- it is very funny that Martha Wells wrote a book about an explicitly asexual aromantic artificial intelligence and still managed to make it OTP babyfic
no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 07:05 pm (UTC)I second this!! And the complicated family stuff, and
I am grateful that it's always ok in a Murderbot book to only kinda follow the spatial layout of the starship or space station or underground research installation or what have you. Because I'm pretty horrid at being able to map that stuff!
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Date: 2020-06-13 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-16 02:16 pm (UTC)When I got totally confused by which version of Murderbot was narrating, my readers helped me out
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Date: 2020-06-12 08:04 pm (UTC)it is very funny that Martha Wells wrote a book about an explicitly asexual aromantic artificial intelligence and still managed to make it OTP babyfic
It is truly impressive!
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Date: 2020-06-13 02:52 am (UTC)It's been so long since I read Patrick O'Brien I'd almost forgotten this experience ... I'm bad at mapping action scenes in general tbh but something about the combination of action + hacking into corporate-named systems makes it extra tricky for me, in indeed much the same way as the combination of action + incomprehensible ocean maneuvers.
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Date: 2020-06-12 08:36 pm (UTC)LOL, YES, and I loved it utterly, as someone who hates babyfic. I loved all the different perspectives -- Murderbot, Murderbot 2.0, the tapes, the new SecUnit -- and of course ART, with its "You don't want to meet me" badass approach. I just about cried when it said it couldn't lose Murderbot. And I want Murderbot to join the resistance team!
- love the reveal that A.R.T. & its people are secretly an underground resistance team. Love how nobody on the university resistance team is concerned by the fact that built an artificial intelligence powerful enough to kill all of them in the blink of an eye if it ever chose. It's OK! Skynet is their pal! They call it by a cute nickname!
I really love how the entire series flips perspectives like that. It's such a fresh take on AI and human-AI relations, and personhood, and so many things.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 02:55 am (UTC)I would really like to know who on the university resistance team greenlit ART's creation and development and what the funding & paperwork process for that was like ... I mean I love ART but I, personally, would be very nervous about ART!
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Date: 2020-06-16 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 10:17 pm (UTC)So totally WORD.
(That is also my favorite scene.)
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Date: 2020-06-13 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-12 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 12:02 am (UTC)Yes, their inner voice is so different from our own Murderbot's, but just as interesting (and important).
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Date: 2020-06-13 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 12:32 am (UTC)So I liked All Systems Red as I like all Wells's books, but didn't <3 it. There's a scene, I think it's in Artificial Condition, where Murderbot is fighting a Combat Unit and pulls off what I thought was a Crowning Moment of Awesomeness by running up a wall, landing on its head and destroying it. At that point, I was in love with Murderbot.
I guess my brain works close enough to Wells's brain that I find her books very cinematic, and only rarely have problems visualizing the story.
EDIT: I think it's that trope of Wells's that her characters self-doubt, downplay their abilities, but won't f-ing stop no matter what. Some of her characters don't have the self-doubt, well, mostly, like Maskelle and Nicholas Valiarde, but faced with long odds, they just power through. What did someone call it, that I shamelessly picked up and use--competency porn. Like Miles Vorkosigan.
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Date: 2020-06-13 03:20 am (UTC)(It's definitely great competency porn, also.)
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Date: 2020-06-13 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-13 03:40 pm (UTC)I'm so delighted!
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Date: 2020-06-13 10:46 pm (UTC)Also Murderbot deleted gender to free up space for more media.