Warning, this review will necessarily spoil the ending of All Systems Red and it’s sequels Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol.

Synopsis: Fresh off the bittersweet success of the previous installment, Murderbot is feeling pretty good about finding evidence of GreyCris Corporations crimes to send to its favorite human, Dr. Mensah, and pretty badly about losing a new friend. The friendship between the innocent robot Miki and its owner, as well as the robots tragic destruction has had a profound impact on Murderbot and turned its thoughts back to its own nominal owner and friend. In the past few months it’s felt emotions it never wanted to feel, cared in ways it never wanted to care, and learned more about what it means to be a person.

“I was having an emotion, and I hate that.” 

― Martha Wells, Exit Strategy

It’s all getting to be too much for a rogue SecUnit that started all this just to watch some soaps. So when Murderbot learns that its #1 favorite human has abducted by the very corporation she was trouncing in court, probably because of the evidence Murderbot just sent her (oops,) it might just be time for this rogue robot to finally go on a rampage!

Tags: Science Fiction, AI Protagonist, Loner Protagonist, Novella, Comfort Read.
Trigger Warnings: None.

Review: Praise Murderbot! I must be the target audience for these books, because there wasn’t a single one I did not love start to finish. Why is this the last one, how quickly will Martha Wells get me my full length novel, and what to I have to do in order to forget these stories completely so I can read them fresh?! In my previous post on Rogue Protocol I mentioned that I felt like rogue protocol was about Murderbot learning to make decisions for itself that aren’t forced by circumstances, if that’s true, than this book is about our artificial protagonist learning about the consequences of best intentions. It’s the culmination of its journey across the four novellas, and it would serve as a satisfying conclusion except that I want more and believe Wells has more to tell.

If I had any problem with this novella I’d say it’s that although some of the cast from a prior novella returns they don’t get a whole lot more character development. If I were to be brutally fair in my star rating based on that technical writing aspect of the story that might be a factor that would cause me to lower my score by half or even a whole point. But I can’t. I’m too in love with these stories. The fact that these are novellas still feels like a valid reason for only one character to be truly fleshed out. It will be less forgivable if this pattern remains in the upcoming full-length novel.

This is the final novella, for now at least, what did I rate it? 5 out of 5 stars of course. Now if you will excuse me, like Murderbot, I’m going to go have an emotion thinking about how I can’t read a new Murderbot Diaries story until some time in 2020.

One last time, here are the Amazon and Goodreads links for your convenience.