“You’re stalling, ART-drone said. I am not. I can stand here and be useless without any ulterior motives, thanks.” We are back in the original timeline after a switch back in Fugitive Telemetry. System Collapse picks up immediately after Network Effect. And for the first time in the entire series Murderbot is not as…
”What is a random opportunity killing? When a human kills another human just because they can.” After the scale of Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry felt surprisingly intimate. There were no sprawling rescue missions, no alien contamination threatening entire systems and no crises stretching across large sections of inhabited space. Instead, someone has been murdered…
“Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don’t have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now.” After four novellas, Network Effect was the first time I had to settle into a full-length Murderbot story. Until this point, the books moved quickly. Most could be finished in a couple of sittings. This one…
“Sending SecUnits after me was one thing. But they sent SecUnits after my client. No one gets to walk away from that.” By the time I reached Exit Strategy, I had started noticing a pattern in The Murderbot Diaries. The books are often discussed in terms of artificial intelligence, autonomy and personhood, and those…
By the time I reached Rogue Protocol, I thought I had a fairly good understanding of Murderbot. It was competent, sarcastic and perpetually irritated by human beings. Every novella seemed to follow a familiar pattern. Murderbot would arrive somewhere intending to mind its own business. Then a conspiracy would emerge, people would find themselves…
After finishing All Systems Red, I did what most readers probably do. I immediately picked up the next novella – Artificial Condition. Part of the appeal was Murderbot itself. By the end of the first book, I had become oddly invested in this socially awkward SecUnit that wanted nothing more than to avoid conversations…
Every once in a while, I take a look at the Hugo and Nebula award winners. Science fiction is one of those genres I keep returning to, and the awards are usually a good way of discovering writers I might otherwise miss. That is how I ended up reading A Memory Called Empire last…
After a break of a few days, I returned to Teixcalaan—because it felt like unfinished business. A Desolation Called Peace is the second and final book in Arkady Martine’s duology, and I’d left it unread. That’s not good form when you choose a series precisely because the story arc spans only two books. Not…
Over the past week, I returned to my favorite genre—science fiction. A duology that had earned critical acclaim was waiting on my shelf, and I thought a space opera that ends in two books would be a manageable read. So I picked up A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine—the first of the Teixcalaan…
I was really waiting for this one. Ever since I heard Dan Brown had a new thriller coming, I’d been waiting. Got this as soon as it showed up in bookstores. Robert Langdon and his symbology. He dazzles, he races, he illuminates ancient texts with modern light. And yet, in The Secret of Secrets,…