2017 science fiction novella. Murderbot is an AI running a light-duty
security robot, trying to keep the humans of a planetary survey
expedition alive, though it would much rather spend its time catching
up on episodes of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Unfortunately its
job is going to get rather harder.
I've read some of Wells's fantasy (particularly her early The
Element of Fire, which I loved), but I think this is her first
venture into non-franchise SF. And it works, rather well; light
worldbuilding can be excused, because Murderbot really doesn't care
about details that aren't related to its job or its hobbies.
I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed
with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that
something else? They don't give murderbots decent education modules
on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions.
There are planetary survey expeditions, and one of the conditions is
that the surveyors rent a security robot. But the initial report
doesn't seem to have mentioned the burrowing megafauna, and then the
other expedition goes ominously quiet.
It's mostly pretty light stuff, with some digs into deeper issues of
AI consciousness and legal status (yes, all right, this book is aimed
pretty squarely at me). Murderbot is suitably sarcastic and would fit
well into a Transhuman Space game, at least the way I tend to run
it.
I heard her telling the others to get off my feed and my comm, that
she was going to be the only one speaking to me so I wasn't
distracted. [She] underestimated my ability to ignore humans but I
appreciated the thought.
It's slight, and has an ending that is clearly setup for the next
episode, but it's good stuff and I look forward to more. To be
followed by Artificial Condition.
This work was nominated for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
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