What an enjoyable cozy scifi adventure! The story centers around a security bot with a self-hacked governor module, who refers to itself privately as “Murderbot” and likes to watch serials and movies surreptitiously in it’s free time. The socially awkward bot repeatedly assures us that it definitely does not care about humans. When the team of scientists which have hired Murderbot are confronted by life threatening situations, it goes out of it’s way to save their lives if only just so it is not labelled as an incompetent. Over the course of the story we observe how it’s relationship with the humans in the group develops and changes. Murderbot’s at times hilarious internal monologues concerning “her humans” were my favourite parts of the book. So those of you who have read the book, how did you like it? How are the rest of the books in the series?
I read it because it is pretty high up on the Good Reads Sci-Fi list. It was a short and interesting read, the premise feels fresh. The writing was good, I did enjoy sarcastic remarks by the murderbot. But I was not super excited to continue reading the series. Somehow, the premise of a murderbot felt like glorifying social awkwardness and isolation and that did not resonate with me. Probably not the most popular opinion, but that’s how the book made feel, anyway.