[HN Gopher] Murderbot, she wrote
___________________________________________________________________
Murderbot, she wrote
Author : lastdong
Score : 134 points
Date : 2024-11-27 10:38 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| ajford wrote:
| One of my favorite series in the last few years. The tech side of
| things are believable enough (at least compared to the usual
| handwavy nature of sci-fi books) and now I understand why, as it
| seems Wells has a history in IT!
|
| I'm struggling to not gush about this book and trying to avoid
| spoilers, but if you like a good sci-fi action/adventure book
| with a strong lean towards a journey of self discover it's really
| worth a read.
| CBLT wrote:
| Seconded - I enjoyed the audiobooks for Murderbot by Graphic
| Audio. I originally found them on a torrent tracker when I was
| searching for something else, and after enjoying the free trial
| I bought the series through Graphic Audio's website.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I listened to the version narrated by Kevin R Free, which I
| enjoyed. It was my first experience with audiobooks so I
| don't have much to compare but I did read some reviews of the
| Graphic Audio versions which suggested they were not
| considered good by some listeners, even those that liked
| other productions from the same source.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I enjoyed the series for a while. But it was around about the
| detective mystery story one that I got bored and wandered off
| to read the Bobiverse books by Dennis Taylor.
| imzadi wrote:
| Bobiverse is great but the latest book is too much like the
| Expeditionary Force books without Skippy.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Thanks will do. A colleague also loves the series.
| moh_maya wrote:
| I echo this. If you liked murderbot, you might also like the
| Battleship Chronicles series by L. Claire (1), and ofcourse,
| the Imperial Radh series by Ann Leickie (2), and bobiverse,
| mentioned below, by Dennis Taylor (3), among others..
|
| (1) https://www.goodreads.com/series/391892-the-battleship-
| chron...
|
| (2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/113751-imperial-radch
|
| (3) https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Seconding the Imperial Radch series, which has a similar "not
| exactly human" perspective.
| jandrese wrote:
| I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary
| Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I
| found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse
| of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while
| the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might
| cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more
| scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the
| fractured psyche of the ruler, but even that gets shoved in
| the background far more than you would expect so the
| protagonist can worry about how she might hurt the feelings
| of the local planetary governor if she doesn't show up for
| his garden party.
|
| The protagonist is basically a disconnected Borg drone,
| although in their universe the drones are left with a bit
| more autonomy than the Star Trek equivalents, but because the
| protagonist is disconnected it doesn't matter nearly as much
| as you would expect.
|
| If you're interested in a big space opera about an empire
| falling apart I found the Collapsing Empire series by John
| Scalzi to be much more engaging.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I quite liked the focus on minutiae while the bigger events
| were happening in the background. The third book even
| discussed it - we live or die today after this battle, but
| if we live then we still need to do the staff rota. It gave
| a little sense of realism that made the larger events more
| relatable.
| finnh wrote:
| Definitely don't read the most recent one, Translation
| Space. It's some very bad "I like you but I don't know how
| to say it!" YA-vein tropes and the climactic scene is,
| essentially, people walking around a circular hallway a
| couple times.
|
| It was so bad it caused me to re-read the original three,
| and I realized that only the first was one was any good.
| msabalau wrote:
| As a matter of taste, fair enough.
|
| But having recently read about all etiquette concerns of
| the Japanese admirals doing their life or death struggles
| during WWII, it hardly seems unrealistic.
|
| For a lot of people, seeing people navigate multiple
| military/social/political spheres is part of the appeal of
| imperial fiction.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| If you like Murderbot, you owe yourself to check out her other
| series, The Cloud Roads. Absolutely fantastic.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation!
| imzadi wrote:
| Another good one is Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
|
| Also, I feel like if I am recommending something I have to
| recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl, which is my current obsession.
| I've read all the books multiple times in multiple formats, but
| it's not much like Murderbot.
| em-bee wrote:
| i am reading service model right now with our scifi book
| club. this book needs a trigger warning for programmers.
| reading it feels like work because i am constantly analyzing
| what coding faults lead to the choices the robots are making.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is also very good imo.
| moomin wrote:
| Honestly that's the book I recommend to anyone who thinks
| Heinlein, Asimov and Niven are all there is to good sci-fi.
| hinkley wrote:
| See also Ann Leckie's Ancillary books (5)
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I found the Ile-Rien books more fun, esp. Death of the
| Necromancer, a nice Francophile steampunk vibe.
|
| I like Murderbot ok, though it's beginning to feel a little
| like a shaggy dog joke at this point.
| noitpmeder wrote:
| Her newer novel "Witch King" is also pretty good! Nominated for
| (but didn't win) the 2024 Hugo. Just finished it last week.
| hinkley wrote:
| When I tried to answer the question, "what did you do with your
| time while you were laid off?" Part of that answer was "read
| about forty books" of which about twenty were Wells'
|
| 5 Ile Rien, 7 Cloud Roads, 2 Emilie, Witch King, plus rereading
| Murderbot
| meonkeys wrote:
| Which were your favorites?
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm curious if Witch King will be standalone or not. That
| might change my answer. The Ile Rien ones were good, the
| Emilie ones would make good YA fare. The Raksura books are
| told by a nonhuman culture, but things get very dark at
| some points. I'd say that one of the main characters in
| that series is a bit of a prototype for Murderbot, and
| another the prototype for Ship.
| jandrese wrote:
| I found the Il-Rien books more engaging than the Cloud Roads.
| Especially the Fall of Il-Rien trilogy. I'm currently reading
| the two-in-one book they released earlier this year in the Il-
| Rien universe.
| zem wrote:
| absolutely! better than murderbot imo, especially the first two
| books.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Super fun popcorn sci-fi books. I enjoyed them all.
| Popcorn thrillers are books that are lighter in content, jam-
| packed with entertainment value, and not too dark, and meant to
| be read in one sitting.
| noirbot wrote:
| They reminded me a lot of a sci-fi version of the classic
| action hero airport novel stuff like Jack Reacher or the Bourne
| books. Just a super competent hero who generally succeeds
| despite things being messy and chaotic.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Yeah, I think it's actually hard to write something that
| quick moving and action packed.
|
| It's perhaps a different skill then character development or
| world building or prose polishing, but it's how you get these
| books people blaze through.
|
| ( Now sometimes I blaze thru something and hate it at the
| end, but thats a different problem ... )
| btown wrote:
| https://archive.is/2024.12.02-165105/https://www.wired.com/s...
| BryanLegend wrote:
| https://archive.ph/gAC9R
|
| archive.is seems to be down.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| I haven't read the stories for many years now but for some reason
| both I and my wife assumed the bot would look female, and both of
| us were independently surprised to learn that the protagonist was
| cast as male in the upcoming series.
| romanows wrote:
| I think Murderbot doesn't have a gender, so it'll probably be a
| pretty androgynous look anyway. I listened to Kevin R Free's
| fantastic narration, so maybe I would have expected a male
| actor, except that I do the aphantasia thing and never
| visualize anything from books to begin with!
| inanutshellus wrote:
| Yes, the robot is not described with a gender and it needn't
| have a gender -- or even the semblance of one -- but for
| whatever reason my wife and I both ignored that and assigned
| it as female, and were really really surprised many years
| later by the casting of a dude. We didn't even talk about it
| when reading the books. Just came up when we were both
| surprised by the casting.
|
| Kinda cool when your book-made vision shifts like that. It's
| one of the funnest parts of reading a book before the movie
| comes out... that sensation of /mental annexation/ that
| happens.
|
| Excited to see the show!
| dartharva wrote:
| Murderbot frequently blends into the crowd as a dude though,
| that's a recurring theme in the series.
| jghn wrote:
| Yes, I was surprised by all the people here who had a
| female mental picture for this reason. While obviously it
| is genderless, my recollection was that there were plenty
| of times where the narrative had it passing as male.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| I'll say I've only read the first ... uh... three? four?
| novellas, and it's been many moons. I don't recall any
| point where having a female form would've been
| noteworthy. Not like a /Stomship Troopers/ shared shower
| moment or anything.
|
| Mainly I think we came up with that mindset immediately
| upon reading the first novella and never updated it.
| jghn wrote:
| It's entirely possible that there's never any point where
| "observed gender" is even implied and my mind just filled
| in some blanks when it talks about passing for human. To
| be honest I never gave it an ounce of thought before this
| whole conversation.
| romanows wrote:
| I remember Murderbot working to blend in and pass as human,
| but I don't remember it trying to pass as male or being
| perceived as male?
| EthanHeilman wrote:
| I assumed MurderBot would not look male or female but look
| androgynous. Additionally the merging of machine and meat would
| result in thin limbs, likely they are going to have to do a lot
| of CGI work in post.
|
| Casting a big name actor in the role, especially a male actor
| who tends to play tough guys, seems like a mistake. ~80% of the
| murderbot fans I've talked to, decided they weren't watching
| the series when they heard that casting decision. Generally the
| take was: "if that is who they cast, they don't understand why
| the books worked." I reserve my judgement until the series
| comes out, actors can act and should not be cast based on
| audiences expectations, but it does not auger well.
| lukev wrote:
| Really? My partner and I and some of our friends thought the
| opposite. Skarsgard _can_ be tough but in many of his roles
| he exhibits a fairly unconventional form of masculinity.
|
| My expectation is that he's going to be able to play an
| ungendered character quite well.
| vundercind wrote:
| Having never heard of this series until this HN thread, I
| assumed from context that you meant _Bill_ Skarsgard, who
| of course is a natural for an out-of-place somewhat-alien
| a-touch-androgynous misfit, having played that kind of role
| well before.
|
| It turned out not to be the one I was sure you meant,
| hahaha. "Iceman" from Generation Kill is rather a twist,
| but of course, as mentioned, actors _are_ supposed to be
| able to act....
| joshkel wrote:
| For what it's worth, Murderbot's "Security Consultant Rin"
| human disguise is apparently female.
| dartharva wrote:
| No it's not.
| joshkel wrote:
| Why do you say that?
|
| I don't have access to the books right now, but from what I
| remember, Rin is referred to as she/her, and random Reddit
| comments (https://www.reddit.com/r/murderbot/comments/118s7
| on/comment/...) back that up.
| dartharva wrote:
| Have you read the later entries in the series?
| joshkel wrote:
| Yes. I don't remember Murderbot using the Rin disguise /
| persona later on.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It's an android, not a gyndroid!
| metaphor wrote:
| I found it effortless to go along with the idea of a gender-
| ambiguous construct antihero throughout _All Systems Red_ , but
| trying to carry the consistency of that descriptive ambiguity
| after a certain point in _Artificial Condition_ required way
| too much squinting by my mind 's eye.
| erganemic wrote:
| That's interesting! My wife and I both pictured him as
| masculine. In my case, as a cis, bi man who's honestly
| evaluated how I play my gender, it was because a lot of the way
| Murderbot feels about being amidst humans is IMO just dead-on
| how a lot of men feel being amidst women?
|
| Like "everyone here is a little wary of me, and I can't even
| really blame them for it, because I just categorically am a
| more threatening presence."
| dageshi wrote:
| I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and
| thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it.
|
| Still not every book is for every person, it didn't connect with
| me but it very obviously has its fans.
| ghaff wrote:
| I felt similarly. Read what I think was the first book. Enjoyed
| it well enough. But also didn't feel a burning need to snag
| further books.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I enjoyed the novella but also didn't feel like it did anything
| particularly new or interesting. I think a lot of people just
| relate to a snarky unwilling protagonist who would rather be
| watching TV.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| >> a lot of people just relate to a snarky unwilling
| protagonist who would rather be watching TV.
|
| You put that beautifully! That is what I enjoyed about it.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I think that is a new and interesting protagonist tbh. So
| many are heros or have to develop into heroism. It's
| refreshing to just have someone who explicitly doesn't save
| the world or similar stakes.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Maybe the pop culture obsession is new, but the snarky,
| reluctant protagonist is something I have seen enough to be
| kind of tired of. Off the top of my head, Murderbot also
| reminds me of the protagonist of _Sixteen Ways to Defend a
| Walled City_ which I recently read.
|
| If you enjoyed Murderbot, take that as a recommendation,
| although it is less sci-fi and more historical fiction.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City has a protagonist
| who is reluctant but is forced to face huge stakes,
| namely the fall of a city at war. Murderbot is
| interesting for more than its reluctance: the stakes are
| distinctly different and far more about introspection and
| self actualization.
| layer8 wrote:
| While I liked it for what it is, the reluctant antihero
| isn't exactly a new concept, other than possibly in the
| present aspect of being a semi-autistic robot/AI.
| jandrese wrote:
| My thought when I was reading it was that Murderbot is a
| stand in for people on the autism spectrum. This is an
| unusual viewpoint in literature and probably resonated with a
| lot of people in a similar situation. I personally liked the
| stories and will read the next installment when it comes out,
| but found myself gravitating more towards ART than Murderbot.
| If I had any quibbles it would be how the living people are
| underdeveloped and sometimes no better than background
| furniture. This naturally arises from the viewpoint of the
| protagonist, but can be somewhat annoying to the reader.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It seems to have a lot of resonance with trans people too.
| I'm autistic but there's enough overlap between the two
| groups that I've noticed how people in both communities
| react to the series.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| It's the kind of book(s) that are better if they sneak up on
| you. The whole point is that murderbot wants to be left alone
| (to watch soap operas!) but keeps having to wrestle with being
| a person in often particularly difficult and confusing
| circumstances. The delight is that it can be wry and
| insightful.
|
| If someone tells you it is going to have big messages I could
| see how it would be disappointing.
| dartharva wrote:
| I listened to the GraphicAudio adaptation of the series and
| couldn't keep it down. It's genuinely great!
|
| The Murderbot series is specifically the kind of literature
| that's meant for serialized A/V adaptation in my opinion; but
| just as a novel of course it won't compete with the kinds of
| Gibson, Stephenson, Egan or even Weir.
| imzadi wrote:
| A lot of the people I see recommending it, including myself,
| listened to the audiobook. I think Kevin R Free really brings
| it alive.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Same. It was ok. Kind of ended before it got going. Definitely
| not good enough to make me want to read more.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| _Murderbot_ is indeed somewhere between OK and good--personally
| I'm leaning towards good, but I wouldn't compare it to a
| masterclass in short-form writing (like anything by Sheckley)
| or a longer piece you could debate for hours afterwards (like
| _A Memory Called Empire_ , to give a recent example). It
| doesn't try to be mind-numbingly flashy, it doesn't
| proselytize, it just brings you to alien vistas to meditate on
| the nature of universal human experience. That is to say, it
| belongs to a good, storied strain of SF that's quite rare
| amongst its modern specimens.
|
| I'd rave about that.
| finnh wrote:
| A Memory Called Empire was so good! Seems like nobody has
| heard of it.
| titanomachy wrote:
| It won the Hugo and was shortlisted for the Nebula, so at
| least some people have heard of it. Those are the two most
| famous sci-fi awards. Sometimes I look at their shortlists
| for ideas on what to read next.
| metaphor wrote:
| Teixcalaan earned two Hugos for Weller in short order; of
| course people have heard of it.
|
| However, it shouldn't be surprising that it's little known
| to the type of crowd that Murderbot Diaries is likely to
| appeal to...perhaps even more so when audiobook is the
| preferred consumption format for such short novellas as
| many commenters here have expressed.
| metaphor wrote:
| If it's a masterclass in anything, it's proven to be a low-
| risk, revenue-generating productization formula with options
| that I've noticed Tor has leaned heavily into for roughly the
| past decade, e.g. Seanan McGuire, Becky Chambers, Ursula
| Vernon, Nghi Vo.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I agree, it was OK. I was hoping, based on the reviews and
| hype, that the books would be much more witty. They turned out
| to be pretty humourless.
| vundercind wrote:
| I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from
| people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual
| problem is that the work is just _OK_ but gets talked up like
| it 's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad.
|
| I've got enough past actually-greats--genre and otherwise--to
| catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's _so_ good! " comments
| from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns
| out to be pretty damn mediocre. That's been the outcome often
| enough that I just have to ignore those kinds of comments, no
| matter how frequently-encountered and how unanswered by
| credible-seeming naysayers they go--those aspects, maddeningly,
| don't seem to correlate with them being more likely to be good
| advice on what to read next.
|
| IDK what the deal is, though I suspect it's actually multiple
| forms of difference in judgement of fiction and expectations
| for how one frames a recommendation, which have different
| causes but the same outcome.
|
| Like, I basically need a top-ten in-genre books and a top-ten
| (dealer's choice) works outside that genre in any medium from
| someone recommending a book, to even begin to judge if what I'm
| going to find on the other side of the recommendation is
| probably going to at least be _fairly_ good. A bare
| recommendation, no matter how glowing, carries no signal. Let
| me know what _else_ you think is good, and I can start to get
| an idea of whether we 're in alignment, because otherwise
| there's a decent chance we very much are not.
| m463 wrote:
| I agree. When I first used to go to bookstores, the "highly
| recommended!" books tended to be star wars type books.
|
| Even author recommendations are hit or miss.
|
| I loved well's murderbot series. I tried her other books
| (Raksura) but it wasn't as fun.
|
| I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was
| hard to get through. Gaiman's short story "How to talk to
| girls at parties" was fun though.
|
| https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_.
| ..
|
| I liked Neal Stephenson's early books like snowcrash or the
| diamond age, but the baroque cycle lost my trust.
| layer8 wrote:
| I liked it and read the first couple of installments, but it's
| a bit of a one trick pony.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Love that series.
| malshe wrote:
| I loved Murderbot series and I have HN to thank for it. So many
| wonderful book recommendations come from HN comments!
| baldeagle wrote:
| The Texas A&M sci-fi convention mentioned in the article is
| coming up in early February. You can bounce over to Cushing
| library to check out the collection, including a copy of
| Fahrenheit 451 in an asbestos zipper case (obviously, you can't
| check that one out of it's special container).
|
| https://www.aggiecon.net/
| dartharva wrote:
| For anyone interested in the Murderbot series I will
| wholeheartedly recommend the GraphicAudio adaptation:
| https://www.graphicaudiointernational.net/our-productions/se...
|
| David Cui Cui is a fantastic narrator and shines in his
| performance as Murderbot.
| meonkeys wrote:
| Lovely series! Wells is awesome.
|
| How does Wired continue to thrive without a paywall? (please I
| hope I didn't just jinx it) (huh, maybe there _is_ a paywall and
| I just haven 't hit it yet? I just noticed an archive.is and
| archive.ph links in other comments)
| hersko wrote:
| This series reminded me about my favorite HFY short story of all
| time: ABBY514
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/c0ojkr/oc_abby514/
| bithead wrote:
| "To shreds, you say"
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-02 23:00 UTC)