Rogue Protocol is another terrific entry in the Murderbot series.

This novella is more of an adventure story, with the bot visiting an abandoned terraforming station to gather evidence of the nefarious activities of the GrayCris corporation before another company takes over the station. Of course, the people representing that company then find themselves in danger, because that’s what humans do, as Murderbot knows all too well. And it may be a rogue unit who doesn’t particularly people, but Murderbot just can’t seem to walk away when stupid humans get themselves in trouble.

Beneath all the action (combat bots!) and snarky humor lies Murderbot’s ongoing journey toward acceptance of its own personhood. This time around, the bot is exposed to what seems to be a genuine friendship between a human and a human-form robot. That kind of relationship is so far outside of Murderbot’s experience that it is troubled by what it observes. But the example provided by their friendship is another step toward Murderbot finally being able to see itself as more than a killing machine.

I can’t wait for the last installment in the series to be published in October. Murderbot has picked a name for itself, which it refuses to share. I suspect readers will find out then, when our heroic bot finally rejects its murderbot label.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Tor/Forge for a digital galley of this book.

If you are thinking about starting to read this series of novellas, I would advise you to try to read the first two before you get going with this one. This is entry three in the four part Murderbot Diaries and the author has been expanding the interactions this SecUnit has with humans and its reactions to their all too messy human emotions. Each book has the SecUnit interfacing with an AI developed to perform a specific type of task and this book features Miki, a robot that has formed almost human feelings and loyalties to the humans she is around. Murderbot doesn't do emotions so its having to suppress how it feels when it watches Miki and her human "friends". The big problem is that Murderbot needs to hijack the feeds coming through Miki so it has to put up with lots of the "human friends" stuff.

The first part of this story has Murderbot acting as onboard security on a transport ship in order to hitch a ride to make a connection with another ship. Just the idea of Murderbot mediating disputes like the weighty problem of who left the cracker wrapper in the galley restroom sink had me smiling like I was slightly off my rocker. This unit is a killing machine and all of those talents for ending arguments instantly (and permanently) had to be subjugated so it could get closer to its destination. The snarky, sarcastic comments keep on coming from this main non-humanoid character and the author does a wonderful job of giving a depth and dimension hard to accomplish in such a short piece of fiction. I've loved each episode as it has been released, I'll looking forward to the final release in this series. I was absolutely delighted to read in a Tor.com newsletter that Martha Wells is working on a full length novel featuring Murderbot. No release date was mentioned but that's okay, I'll wait.

If you haven't read these books, stop whatever you're doing Right Now and get started. This is an awesome series about self-identity, humanity, and choice, as well as kick ass sci-fi.

Rogue Protocol was my first Murderbot book, though the third in the series. Smoothly written sci fi adventure, easily pictured as a movie with wry voice-over. Overly violent for my taste, at least one-third of the book is fight sequences, but I should have guessed from the series title... a very quick read.

This would have been a 5 star book if not for the abrupt, rushed feeling of the ending and the very short format. It feels like a part of a novel that has been released as a serial or made to be several books instead of a single full sized book. The world building, characters, and dialogue in the two I have read (book 1 and 3) have been excellent. It has a very unique and humorous voice in the main character of "murderbot" and should have a wide appeal among adults and the YA market. I'd definitely recommend this series. If it was released as a single book (or perhaps as set bound together) I would personally buy it on the merit of the two I have read. That said the first was definitely better than this 3rd entry. Hopefully the 2nd that I haven't read and the final conclusion will raise it to 5 stars rather than detracting.

I just want to say thank you to Martha Wells for giving me something new to obsess over. No, really, thanks. I got this arc at 8pm. Decided to read a couple of pages before bed and ended up staying up until 1am finishing it. Who needs sleep anyway? You can do that when you’re dead. I love MurderBot. One of the most unusual and engaging protagonists it’s ever been my pleasure to discover. I love the fast pace, the tantalising world building, the side characters. This quartet is turning out to be a hard favourite. I am now bereft and desperate for Exit Strategy.

I tried hard to keep this free of spoilers, but I might have failed a little.

“There needs to be an error code that means ‘I received your request but decided to ignore you.‘“

Sassy bot is back! This newest novella is full of increasing levels of snark, sarcasm and mental eye rolls by one of the most engaging AIs I have met so far.

“Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas.“

Murderbot is still struggling with... emerging emotions? Becoming more human? Trying and failing to understand those pesky humans? And really getting fed up with pretending to be one.

I really liked Murderbot‘s interactions with other bots, from remembering and missing ART to meeting transport bots that are either too demanding or too simple and unaware to present adequate sparring partners.

I really liked the combat bots, too. Wells painted a great picture with her description of them. And how smart to put the main processing units where they are. Makes perfect sense.

“I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can‘t just stop.“

As if hacking yourself and running away isn‘t bad enough, now there is also caring for pesky humans (again!) and their pets.

Miki was an interesting addition. Not as fun as ART, but a great exploration of where intelligence can take you and how treatment by others can shape your personality. Nature or nurture. And envy and anger. Murderbot is learning more every day.

Great addition to the series, can‘t wait for the next one and I am really looking forward to the full-length novel!

I received this free, uncorrected digital galley from Tor via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

Murderbot is endearing in their own antisocial, paranoid way. They may have hacked their own governor module, but they have not yet managed to eliminate their needless attachment to humans. Until it does, Murderbot is consigned to a life of stressful adventure. It’s hard on poor Murderbot, but it makes for great reader entertainment.

Here we are with another installment of the Murderbot chronicles. I am always left with wanting more. Martha Wells crafts these novellas with just the right amount of intrigue, action and angst. I read this completely without wanting to put it down. Murderbot is again trying to find answers to what the GrayCris Corporation is up to. We find out anti-hero hiding out with a survey team investigating a terraforming operation. Without giving too much information to spoil the story, Murderbot wants to just do his thing and be left alone with his media files but intervenes again when the humans run into a situation that they are not prepared for. There is of course betrayal and last minute plot twists. You will have to read it to find out where the betrayal comes from. I look forward to the next installment which I understand is the last unfortunately.

More and more pieces of Murderbot's journey start to come together in the third installment of Murderbot Diaries. It has to deal with more humans (ugh), a pet bot, and a dubious situation to get to the heart of what is going on with GrayCris. It's amazing to see it learn to deal with being on it's own, interacting with people, and other bots. It's intensely relatable, for all that Murderbot isn't human...it really is.

The Murderbot is back! My favorite binge-watching artificial intelligence is still searching for answers about its past and the company that threatened its humans. This time checking out a deserted base with a hapless survey crew almost certainly heading into a trap. It’s hard for even a free-thinking Security Unit to fight the programming that drives it to protect and yet again it takes on the role of Security specialist for the group. This is easily one of my favorite new series and TOR recently announced a full-length novel on the way! Pick up All Systems Red to start from the beginning.

This continues to be a super fun series with a great view point character. The most interesting parts of "Rogue Protocol" deal with Murderbot's continued emotional and social development. It is still attempting to be calm and detached in the way that AI's are "supposed" to be, and yet it just can't seem to stop caring about the people around it.

In this adventure, Murderbot finds out that Dr. Mensah may be having trouble dealing with the aftereffects of the events in "All Systems Red". In order to help, Murderbot heads off to look for evidence that could help. Along the way it reluctantly befriends a super positive robot named "Miki", agrees to help Miki protect its humans, and of course everything spirals into chaos from there. I love the way that Martha Wells manages to write several different genderless AI characters and imbue all of them with a ridiculous amount of character and depth.

This series is full of good character moments, humor, and action. Highly recommended to anyone interested in some seriously fun sci-fi.

In Wells' third installment of The Murderbot Diaries, we are back with our antisocial AI who once again finds herself in the kind of moral dilemmas that are common for our favorite bot.

This time Murderbot has to save a group of humans/bots from not only part of their team, but also from Killerbots. On top of this the case against the GrayCis cooperation is floundering, and questions about Dr. Mensah's secunit are being asked. Another adventure ensues. Murderbot has more feelings it doesn't appreciate. It cannot wait to get back to its media away from humanity.

This was another fun romp of an adventure with Murderbot. The moral dilemmas that Murderbot faces, not to mention the feelings it encounters are so accurate and relatable, that even though we do not have the hacking power or the killing power of Murderbot, its character remains so very relatable.

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on 04 August 2018]

Rogue Protocol is the third book in The Murderbot Diaries series, which is made up of four novellas and a recently announced novel.

Murderbot may have decided to leave Dr Mensah after the end of All Systems Red, but this doesn't mean it doesn't want to help her uncover GrayCrisis corporation's illicit activities. Because of this, Murderbot finds itself with another human crew to protect, while trying to hide its identity of rogue SecUnit.
As usual for this series, all the human characters are intentionally underdeveloped - Murderbot tries not to get attached to them and everything we see is in its perspective - but just like in Artificial Condition, in this novella Murderbot meets another AI, the pet bot Miki, who is also the secondary character that gets most development.

I love this series because of what it says about AIs and humanity, and because of Murderbot's narration - it is an anxious, sarcastic AI who just wants to be left alone, and it's the only AI in fiction I know that has been described multiple times as "relatable". It's a really interesting combination and also the main reason I read this series.
I have to say that after three novellas, the worldbuilding of this series is still lackluster - not only I don't know how anything looks like, I couldn't always remember what the many names thrown around meant, because it's been months since I've read the first two books. Also, I missed ART in this one, and these are the main reasons I didn't love Rogue Protocol as much as the previous book.

I love Murderbot and would read stories about [its] favorite soaps all summer long, but Wells has something more substantial than that; ethical quandaries and real-though-unwanted compassion for (some) humans.

I love the Murderbot. This series is everything I hoped it would be and this was an excellent addition to it. I find myself relating to Murderbot so much, there are many times when I just want to be left alone to watch my series or just to read. I love the themes that this series has brought up especially the one about what makes someone human. Once again we are treated to another type of robot, another one not as high level as Murderbot, but just as compelling. Miki is treated well by her 'owners' and she considers them friends. The humans that hire Murderbot to help them on this mission are also well drawn. This one is a diverse group as well. Lots of action and excitement. Once again I am blown away by how much is crammed into such a short book.

Poor Murderbot. All Murderbot wants to do is sit someplace it won't be disturbed and watch TV or read stories, until like, the end of time. I can *completely* relate. And yet it keeps getting pulled into these human conflicts. This story isn't quite as edge-of-my-seat or anxiety-inducing as part 2 (Artificial Condition); ART was a better character to me than little Miki was here. But still lots of action and so much snarkiness from Murderbot. Aren't we all here for the snark?

These smaller vignettes are great, but would I read a full-length Murderbot novel? Yes. Yes I absolutely would.

Thank you to Tor for providing the ARC via Netgalley. Of course the problem with reading Part 3 early is there's an even longer wait for the concluding Part 4...

The idea of an antisocial synthetic being becoming involved in human issues, often against his better judgment is an appealing one.  Rin, as he calls himself here, pretends to be an augmented human, but is in reality a rogue SecUnit - rogue because he doesn’t have an owner and follows his own agenda.  While helping humans is far from his first priority - if it helps him attain his goals….


Rogue Protocol is a short novel with a straightforward action heavy plot.  Rin (the name Murderbot adopts) is pursuing evidence against GrayCris a large and influential corporation.  This takes him to Milu where GrayCris was supposedly terraforming - but actually excavating alien ruins. Vital evidence may still be present, despite the abandonment of the base.  Rin stows along with a team of researchers, their humanoid robot and two bodyguards on an expedition to the base. Needless to say, the base isn’t as deserted as believed and the humans are in serious danger.


Murderbot’s views on humans and society add interest to an otherwise mediocre novel.  Both he and Miki, the humanoid robot are more developed than the human characters present in the story.  It makes for a unique point of view. The action sequences are well done, and believable in the novel’s context.


The short length limits the complexity of the plot.  My personal preference is for a longer book with a more developed plot.  But if you view Rogue Protocol strictly as a short novel, and constrain your expectations accordingly you will be well satisfied.


4 / 5


I received a copy of Rogue Protocol from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.


— Crittermom

I worried that All Systems Red was impossible to follow up, but each volume keeps getting better. I do think the price point nis a bit too high for the page count though.

Murderbot's motivations are left as something of a mystery, even three books into the series. "All Systems Red" sees it accidentally embroiled in a conspiracy to kill off its charges, a human contingent of scientists surveying a planetary surface. I say "accidentally" in that Murderbot has full agency, only it prefers to remain undercover as an obedient, non-rogue SecUnit so that it can continue to watch "Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" without interruption. It is fully capable of independent decision-making and action, having disabled its governor module, the device and programming designed to keep androids and robots subservient to their human overlords. In "All Systems Red," Murderbot acts to save certain humans without really interrogating why. One of these humans then purchases Murderbot from Evil Co. (I mean, "the company") and sets it free, officially, after which it races off into space to leave all those pesky humans behind. In "Artificial Condition," Murderbot accepts a job as a security consultant (undercover as a regular ol' augmented human) because his new employers are offering it a ride where it already intended to go—and when they run afoul of another shady corporation, ends up bailing their puny human asses out of trouble, all while trying to figure out the truth behind its own memories. Did it or did it not commit a mass murder before becoming self-aware and hacking its governor module? The end result is surprising enough not to spoil here.

"Rogue Protocol" brings us full circle, in that the legal consequences of "All Systems Red" are finally catching up to Murderbot. It has been outed as an ungoverned SecUnit in news feeds, and its departure from its erstwhile owner, Dr. Mensah, has been noted. Meanwhile, rumors are beginning to reconsolidate into confirmed facts that certain corporations are willing to privilege profit over human life ... to the extent of massacring innocents and then covering it up. (Too close to real life? Maybe?) Dr. Mensah needs evidence that GrayCris is acting in bad faith, and despite repeated comments about how it would much rather be watching serials on the feed (read: television on the Internet), Murderbot goes a-sleuthing. Only, it doesn't tell Dr. Mensah that it's going a-sleuthing, and only after saving yet another group of puny humans from their poor security choices (and another corporate conspiracy), it has enough evidence to justify going back and reconnecting with the survey team of "All Systems Red."

You might have noticed by now that there are certain elements to "The Murderbot Diaries" that repeat. And it's true: Wells is onto a good thing, and knows it, and is milking it a little bit. That's alright insofar as I'm concerned because the brevity of the novella form means that I'm reading these books much like Murderbot is watching episodes of "Sanctuary Moon." There is an overarching structure and narrative arc, and the smaller serial arcs of the novellas are tightly plotted enough to keep the momentum going.

On a sentence level, Wells opts more often than not for simple sentences and stripped-down dialogue. Italics are used for conversations taking place over private feeds, such as between the humans and Murderbot when they don't want to converse out loud, or between Murderbot and the various bots it encounters. I'm unconvinced that my own brain could create logical, grammatically-correct sentences without the structure-enabling delays of conversation or the written page to channel them, but it works as a narrative device here to enable Murderbot to capture internal monologues in a much more interesting format. Occasionally Wells' sentences are so simple that they don't hold up well under close scrutiny; I noticed this issue first around the beginning of chapter three in "Rogue Protocol," but quickly forgot about it. One might even safely assume that Wells adopts this tone deliberately in order to reflect machine code, which (mostly) eschews the extraneous. But it would be a disservice to "The Murderbot Diaries" to swan in looking for lush landscape description and lush self-analysis.

"Rogue Protocol" and "The Murderbot Diaries" as a whole together make up a propulsive, engaging extrasolar adventure, incorporating elements of thriller and espionage genres into the science fictional construct. Murderbot is a unique and fresh take on the inhuman protagonist, and defies expectations at every turn. These books make for an excellent summer read, and with "All Systems Red" now out in paperback, there's no excuse not to stick one in your pocket as you head down to the beach (or up to the mountains, or out onto the scorched plains of Hellas Planitia) for a little R&R.