SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells:

Rogue Protocol is the third novella (of four) in Martha Wells' "The Murderbot Diaries", which began with last year's "All Systems Red." (Review Here) and continued with this year's "Artificial Condition" (Review Here).  As I've said before, All Systems Red was my pick for this year's Hugo Award for Best Novella (and it won the Award) and I enjoyed Artificial Condition as well, so I was eagerly anticipating this volume becoming available from the library and snatched it up as soon as it was.  The good news is that the quality of this novella has not gone down one bit from its predecessors, with it maybe being as good as the initial novella.  I continue to recommend this series to anyone looking for short fiction.

Note:  The Murderbot Diary novellas essentially function and feel like episodes of a TV Show - Each follows from the events of the other, even if a small time period elapses between them.  The Result is that they are not really stand alone outside of the first novella, so do not begin the story with Rogue Protocol - you won't be hopelessly confused if you do so, but you'll miss enough to lose most of the impact and goodness I would think.  


Quick Plot Summary: Having discovered the truth about its past, Murderbot checks and is disappointed to find that the litigation over GrayCris' attempt to exterminate his clients (back in All Systems Red) is still ongoing, raising the possibility that someone will search Murderbot out - which it absolutely does not want.  To prevent this, Murderbot decides to stow away on a transport to a facility where GrayCris mysteriously abandoned a "terraforming project" - which Murderbot is sure was really a cover for collecting alien artifacts.  But when Murderbot arrives, it finds itself once again following a group of humans wandering into almost certain danger, and it finds it hard to resist helping them.  And not helping things is a Bot named Miki that is alongside these humans, who seems to treat the humans as friends rather than owners, which only infuriates the antisocial Murderbot.....

Thoughts:  What makes these novellas so great is its principal character- Murderbot - who as a part-human/part-artificial construct* that has hacked itself to become truly free of any exterior control, struggles to understand its own feelings and wants.  Murderbot if it had its druthers at the start of the series was an antisocial extreme introvert, who would prefer to be left alone by others - particularly humans - and just given time to watch the video dramas it enjoys so damn much.  But as the series has come along, Murderbot has found itself compelled by what it won't admit is a conscience to protect other people, and moreover, that it actually likes certain people/beings (ART from the last book being a non-human example).

  This novella furthers that development.  Oh the novella features some excellent worldbuilding and a fun plot featuring Murderbot having to deal with some dangerous forces trying yet again to kill a group of humans who are too ignorant of threats for their own good, but the thing that makes it stand out is Murderbot's interior narration.  Here that comes from its views of the bot, Miki, who Murderbot clearly at first looks down upon infuriated that it would treat its humans as "friends" and not "owners" but who Murderbot clearly comes to envy (though it would never admit that).  And it's through this, in the end, that convinces Murderbot to clearly take the next step in its growth, and well, it works so damn well and I can't wait to read it in the final novella later this year.

*I called it a cyborg in a prior post, but as Greg Hullender pointed out, I don't think that word works here, so I'm going with the word used in story "Construct."