The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

Murderbot is a rogue sec unit. It hacked its governor module and could do anything it wants. Like, hide behind its opaque visor and watch endless hours of its favourite TV shows. It still works as a sec unit, tough. And soon Murderbot grows on you, just as it grows on the humans it protects.

I enjoyed this inhuman MC very much. It was wonderful seeing Murderbot interact with humans, basing its communication skills on the TV series it has been watching. Just as fun is seeing Murderbot ‘make friends’ with other bots, drones, and AIs. One of my favourite secondary characters is ART, by the way, the AI of a research transport. I do like its sense of humour.

Over the course of the five stories, Murderbot is evolving, of course. It is learning from its interactions with humans and machines alike. This is not necessarily making it seem more human, but definitely less of a machine designed to kill.

I can’t wait to see what its next adventure will be like. Fugitive Telemetry is going to be out 27 April 2021. I’m practically counting the seconds until the release. Not to mention that I applied for a review copy, which I was approved of only minutes after I wrote my first draft of this post.

As you can see, I’m not the only Sceptre who has a crush on Murderbot. TheLadyDuckOfDoom reviewed The Murderbot Diaries in September 2020.