Review of "Rogue Protocol" by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little.”

That sort of observation is why I love Murderbot. I expected to enjoy this novella and I did, even more than the first two in the series. Murderbot is a clever, part-organic robot meant to be a security unit, but a while back it broke free of its corporate owner. In the first novella, it knew it had once killed a lot of people and didn’t know why. In the second novella, it searched to find out why. In this one, it learns even more.

But in the process, sometimes against its better judgement, it keeps having to do its job as a security unit and protect human beings from harm, either through attack by outside forces or from squabbling within a team. And at each step, Murderbot learns a little more about itself. In the third novella, it sees something disturbing about how robots can be treated.

I read this on the airplane on the way to Worldcon 76, the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California. At the convention, Martha Wells won a Hugo Award for the first installment in the series, All Systems Red. She was delighted, and it had faced tough competition. I was delighted because it had been my first choice for the award.

Now I’m eager to read the conclusion, Exit Strategy, but I have to wait until October.

-- Sue Burke

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