Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) Reviews

• 
  carol.

  2021 is looking to be a pretty special year. No, I don’t mean the vaccine, although that’s pretty amazing. No, I mean Murderbot is back in a solid novella. While I’m contractually bound to not repeat the approximately 80 highlights I made while reading, I can assure you that it is filled with ‘Bot’s trademark sarcastic thoughts on humans, slow thought processes, and complicated facial expressions.
  
  "Oh good, maybe the security level would go from barely adequate to mostly adequate. I didn't make an expression because I knew Indah would be more annoyed by me not reacting than by me reacting."
  
  In Fugitive Telemetry, ‘Bot is on Preservation Station and has recently discovered a dead–cough, deceased–human. This is odd, because they appear murdered on a station with a threat assessment of 7% “(to make it drop lower than that we’d have to be on an uninhabited planet.)” ‘Bot jumps right into the investigation, spurred on by concern that GrayCris might be involved. In this case, it’s somewhat constrained from using full capabilities due to general unfriendliness of the human Station Security team and its honor system. It has some new humans to work with, although a few of our familiar friends make an appearance. In timeline terms, it takes place before Network Effect.
  
  I received notice of my ARC approval after a marathon day vaccinating people (10 stations, 573 people, thank you all very much for getting shots), and while fulfilled, was quite exhausted. I waged a brief debate with myself: do I crash in bed? Do I save it as a reward after I write my two other reviews and finish my two other less-interesting books? Or do I go for it?
  
  I think you know what I did.
  
  While I read, my day fell away, page by page, replaced by sarcastic observations and extremely dry wit. ‘Bot, how I’ve missed you.
  
  “I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.”
  
  The only real question was how long until I re-read all the novellas?
  
  Endless thanks to Netgalley and Tor/Forge Books for an ebook ARC. All thoughts are mine (although if you like, we can have a philosophical debate on that one) and all quotes are subject to change.
• 
  Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽

  Murder on the Preservation Express
  
  New Murderbot novella, now on sale! And good news:
  Martha Wells has signed a contract with Tor to write three more! Final review, first posted on
  FantasyLiterature.com (along with my co-reviewer Jana's excellent review):
  
  Martha Wells continues her popular and highly-acclaimed MURDERBOT DIARIES series with another novella, Fugitive Telemetry, which actually takes place before the only novel in the series so far,
  Network Effect. (So you could read this one before that novel, but you do need to read books 1-4 first.) At this point in time Murderbot, the introverted and snarky cyborg who is the narrator and the heart of this series, is a fairly new resident on Preservation, a planet outside of the callously capitalistic Corporate Rim. Murderbot is a companion to and protector of Dr. Mensah, one of the few humans Murderbot has gradually learned to trust. Although Preservation society isn’t entirely accepting of security bots (especially rogue ones like Murderbot that aren’t subject to human controls), it’s generally a very peaceful and progressive place.
  
  So it’s a shock to everyone when the body of an unknown person is found in an isolated passageway of Preservation Station, the space station above the planet, clearly murdered. Station Security is charged with the investigation, with Senior Officer Indah in charge, but Mensah prevails on them to let Murderbot help, since it knows a lot more about murder than the local security force, and they want to make sure that GrayCris isn’t involved. Indah is annoyed (“but then she always looked like that when I was around”) and distrustful of working with a SecUnit. But when things get complicated, Murderbot is undeniably useful to have around.
  
  Fugitive Telemetry is an engaging and enjoyable entry in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series, with a plot that stirs a murder mystery in with the regular science fiction adventure plot. As always, Murderbot’s snarky narration (liberally scattered with parenthetical remarks, which I love because I’m—obviously—partial to them myself) is one of the highlights. Sometimes there are even parentheses inside of parentheses:

  (When we had first discussed the idea of me getting jobs as a way to encourage the Preservation Council to grant me permanent refugee status, I didn’t know very much about the kind of contract in which I was actually an active participant. (My previous contracts were rental contracts with the company, where I was just a piece of equipment.) Pin-Lee had promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.”)
  
  (I said, “It takes one to know one.”)

  I won’t say more about the mystery that drives the story, to avoid spoilers, but it’s a solid one, with a resolution that was both logical and a complete surprise, at least to me.
  
  Fugitive Telemetry doesn’t really move the overall story arc forward in the way that most of the other books have, partly because it’s a prequel to the preceding novel and partly because Murderbot’s interactions with the initially hostile Indah have a been-there-done-that kind of feel. These are relatively minor complaints, though. Murderbot, though still a media-watching introvert, has come a long way from the SecUnit that had near-crippling social anxiety in
  All Systems Red. It interacts much better with humans now and even finds itself (somewhat begrudgingly) appreciative of its relationships with them, though its eye-rolling at humans’ logical inadequacies will probably never disappear … and that’s a good thing. We all could use a Murderbot in our lives to remind us of our shortcomings and protect us against corporate evils and other threats. Any new MURDERBOT DIARIES book shoots immediately to the top of my reading list — and it should yours as well!
  
  Update #3: So my brother, another Murderbot fan, was coming into town about a week ago and let me know that he was VERY anxious to read Murderbot's next adventure. I thought, well, I can reread my ARC of Fugitive Telemetry and write my review for it and then loan him the book. Excellent plan! I'm on it!
  
  The rereading part went great. The actual writing of the review ... not so much. So my brother left town, sadly, without the book, which is still sitting here on my coffee table.
  
  Update #2: I just finished! Another fun Murderbot adventure! Review to come!
  
  Update #1: AAAHHH, the ARC of this book just landed on my doorstep! I am SO EXCITED for a new Murderbot adventure!!
  
  Initial post: More Murderbot coming! How awesome is that? Can we make 2021 come any sooner? I think we're all over and done with 2020 anyway...
• 
  Nataliya

  This was exactly what I needed just now to set my life right. I mean, who knew that a pessimistic and grumpy android would end up being such a ray of sunshine that restores my belief in humanity? (Kidding, of course I knew.) (That’s why it seems that every other sentence out of my mouth for the last year somehow included the word “Murderbot” in it.)
  
  As I said before, M-Bot is my soul-sibling.
  

  “All I wanted to do was watch media and not exist.”

  
  And this novella did not disappoint, solid and snappy and wonderful. It’s a locked room space station mystery solved by Murderbot. (Which is simply logical.)
  

  

  “I had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.”

  
  Fugitive Telemetry is chronologically set right after the events of the four original novellas and before the events of
  Network Effect. In it, our favorite pessimistically misanthropic grumpy SecUnit - “a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module” - is on the Preservation Station now, the home of Mensah and the rest of the Preservation survey gang. But although it left Corporate Rim - where, true to the name, corporations rule everything - and is in the place where technically it’s not property, it’s still faced with prejudice, fear and mistrust, as it’s still viewed by most as a murderous tool to be avoided and feared.
  

  “There was a big huge deal about it, and Security was all “but what if it takes over the station’s systems and kills everybody” and Pin-Lee told them “if it wanted to do that it would have done it by now,” which in hindsight was probably not the best response.”

  
  And then Station Security happens across a dead human - an unusual occurrence in a place where your chances of being murdered are on par with those on an uninhabited planet.
  

  

  
  And M-Bot finds itself smack in the middle of murder investigation — and that’s quite good as without our Bot I’d be amazed if any humans managed to survive unscathed even for the time it takes to watch a single episode of Sanctuary Moon.
  

  “Oh good, maybe the security level would go from barely adequate to mostly adequate. I didn't make an expression because I knew Indah would be more annoyed by me not reacting than by me reacting.”

  
  We have been following Murderbot ever since its escape from corporate slavery, and in this novella we get to see yet another glimpse of this abhorrent practice, as the murder and corporate slavery are very much entangled here. And what I love is that Martha Wells never gets didactic in getting her point across, but knows how to use subtlety and good storytelling to achieve the necessary emotional (ick) response.
  
  As usual in her Murderbot novellas, Wells gets the pacing just right. It’s fast when it needs to be, slows down when we need to be treated to longer bits of priceless wry inner monologue, and has action scenes that make perfect sense. Seriously, I’ve read plenty of stories where my eyes just glaze over any time an action scene is on page as descriptions of those can range from dull to incomprehensible — but Wells does those right, easy to follow and actually interesting. And her worldbuilding is excellent — she deliberately gives us what we need to feel comfortable in this world without divulging too much, never overpowering or showing off.
  
  (Oh, and did I mention how much I love all the parenthetical asides?) If seeing endless parenthetical asides gets you irritated, you should step away from this book quite quickly. Me - I love them, and paragraphs like this one make me feel all full of warm fluffy feelings (double ick):
  

  “The weapons scanner (which I was not allowed to hack, and which I wasn’t hacking) alerted on me, but it had my body scan ID on the weapons-allowed list so it didn’t set off an alarm. (I have energy weapons in my arms and it’s not like I can leave them behind in the hotel room.) (I mean, my arms are detachable so theoretically I could leave them behind if I had a little help but as a longterm solution it was really inconvenient.)”

  

  
  What I found very well-done is that even seemingly idyllic Preservation society is not an easy place for Murderbot. Yes, Bot is no longer property — but even there humans are conditioned to see it not as a person but a feared murder-machine. And Murderbot by now is really starting to chafe against that because it finally is learning to view itself as a person instead of a disposable feared tool. Nonhuman and dehumanized by societal perceptions — but a person nevertheless. The prejudices it encounters are quite painful, and it keeps coating its pain in sarcastic annoyance — and all together it makes for a pretty powerful and serious effect even when hidden in snarky comebacks. And it’s terrible to read how it’s shot in the back by people he just rescued from a certain death — all because they realized what it is, and it overpowered any common sense or gratitude or decency.
  

  “Aylen looked me over again in that way humans do when they’re trying to intimidate you and they fail to understand you’ve spent the entire length of your previous existence being treated like a thing and so one more impersonal once-over is not exactly going to impress you.”

  
  Oh yeah, and if you ever wondered if Murderbot hangs out with Ratthi — yeah, they juuuust may watch some musical theater together. Which made me grin so happily. Ah Murderbot, you made some friends even if you don’t quite use that word. Friends who see you as a person, respect you, give you space when you need it and help you work through the layers of emotional trauma that your whole existence had been until the events of All Systems Red. And it’s simply wonderful, the found family that it did not even realize it needed.
  

  Eyeing me, Indah said, “How would you dispose of a body so it wouldn’t be found?”
  I’m not the public library feed, Senior Officer, go do your own research. I said, “If I told you, then you might find all the bodies I’ve already disposed of.”
  “It’s joking.” Ratthi managed to sound like he completely believed that. “That’s how it looks when it’s joking.” He sent me on the feed, Stop joking.”

  
  I really hope that Wells keeps writing these, as together they form a wonderful series of episodes of Murderbot Diaries — which I’m as addicted to as M-Bot is to Sanctuary Moon. I need these for my inner balance and reminders of the goodness, integrity and hope that exist in the world. Dear Martha Wells, please never stop adding to this series.
  

  “I know a ‘fuck off’ when I hear one. So, I fucked off.”

  
  5 stars. Obviously.
• 
  MarilynW

  Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries #6)
  by Martha Wells, Kevin R. Free (Narrator)
  
  This Murderbot Diary story takes us to a time before the previous book, when Murderbot is providing protection for Dr. Mensah, despite the reservations of some who are aware that it was a rogue Sec Unit. A body has been found on Preservation Station and the person has been murdered. Rarely are there murders on this station and Preservation's station security needs all the help they can get, despite their reluctance to admit it. So MB is back to having to appease suspicious, unfriendly (but who needs friends), non really up to the task of investigating murders security team.
  
  As usual, MB is snarky, funny, and more sympathetic than it'd ever want to admit. Its disdain for all the food crumbs that humans leave in their wake is evident every time it enters a place that humans have been. How is MB going to solve this crime with all the restrictions that humans put on it? Sure, it can get around them but it's made a promise to humans and MB always (maybe, kinda, sorta) keeps its promises.
  
  Published April 27, 2021
  
  In the comments, someone asked about when the stories take place so I'm adding a link here to a page that lists the chronological order of the series.
  
  
  https://murderbot.fandom.com/wiki/Cat...
  
  Chronological Order
  
  The series was released out of order compared to its in-universe chronology. The chronological order is:
  
  Compulsory
  All Systems Red
  Artificial Condition
  Rogue Protocol
  Exit Strategy
  Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
  Fugitive Telemetry
  Network Effect
  
  The first four Novellas have been re-released for a timed and limited edition called The Murderbot Diaries.
• 
  Matt's Fantasy Book Reviews

  
  Check out my YouTube channel where I show my instant reactions upon finishing reading fantasy books.
  
  The exact same formula as the previous books, but much more bland
  
  Unpopular opinion time! By the time readers have made it to this book, they have either dropped off due to not liking it, or loved it and continued this far. But I decided to power through even though this series lost it's magic for me a few books ago. Unfortunately, this book was a noticeable step down from previous books, and as such I couldn't bring myself to even finish it.
  
  The plot was dull from the get-go, and while that's usually the case for these books, it just never picked up steam like previous ones did. There was no rich emotional journey, there was no developing of these characters, it just felt like the exact same formula but less inspired.
  
  Quite honestly, this book is just a run of the mill mystery story that involves Murderbot - while lacking the fun interaction between characters and the bonding that occurs between Murderbot and his supporting cast. It also didn't advance the overall story at all - if you were wondering what is going on with GreyCris, what happened with SecUnit 3, what happened with ART, you are going to have to keep on wondering because absolutely none of that is touched upon. This book is just a boring side quest.
  
  I'm also disappointed that Murderbot has developed over the past couple books into a character that is trying to be "too cool". Apparently it's his new thing to say "fuck" every other sentence and feel superior to everyone. I miss the kinder, shyer murderbot who had his insecurities from the earlier books.
  
  I'm not going to completely give up on this series, as I quite liked the previous entry which was the first full length novel. But I am probably going to give up reading any future novellas.
• 
  karen

  oooh, goodreads choice awards finalist for best science fiction 2021! WHAT WILL HAPPEN LET’S FIND OUT!
  
  All I wanted to do was watch media and not exist.
  
  murderbot always hits the spot. i was cranky and depressed, staring at my bookshelves for something to entertain me out of my mood, when it hit me—you know who else is cranky and depressed and uses entertainment as self-care? MURRRRDERRRRBOOOOOT!
  
  this one's maybe not my favorite in the series; my flawed brain had to blah-blah a lot of the logistics and tech-stuff, but murderbot + locked-room mystery is the french fry in my frosty, so there's a lot to love here.
  
  as always, a tight plot that resolves itself in a satisfying and unexpected way, with plenty of m-bot's signature wry commentary on the proceedings as they endure the suspicion and prejudice that comes with being a rogue secunit amongst humans.
  
  

  Aylen looked me over again in that way humans do when they're trying to intimidate you and they fail to understand you've spent the entire length of your previous existence being treated like a thing and so one more impersonal once-over is not exactly going to impress you.

  
  
  this time, murderbot overcomes their antipathy towards these human skeptics and becomes a reluctant hero...JK that's what murderbot ALWAYS does, but it never gets old, because their (figurative) eye-rolling disgust and sleuthing ingenuity is such a BALM to my SOUL, as is their learning curve when it comes to "trying not to freak out the humans it's meant to be helping."
  
  

  Aylen was watching me intently. "I don't like having private security with its own agenda aboard this station."
  
  Oh wait, she thought it was GrayCris. That maybe I had found out Lutran was a GrayCris agent and killed him, and now I was trying to lead the investigation along a specific path, using my two oblivious human friends as cover.
  
  So, the problem was, that wasn't an unlikely idea at all. It was something I might have to do if I did find a GrayCris operative on the station. which meant I had to answer very carefully.
  
  There were a lot of humans lying to each other on The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, and I knew outright angry denials tended to sound incredibly guilty, even though they were often an innocent human's first impulse. You wouldn't think lying would be a problem for me, after 35,000 plus hours lying about not being a rogue SecUnit while on company contracts, then the whole lying about not being an augmented human and lying about being a non-rogue SecUnit with a fake human supervisor. But the last two hadn't exactly been failure-free; what worked best was misdirection and not letting myself get caught in the wrong place at the right time, and making sure no humans ever thought about asking the wrong questions.
  
  Misdirection, let's try that. "I would have either disposed of the body so it was never found, or made it look like an accident."
  
  Indah frowned, and Aylen's brow creased, and they exchanged a look. Eyeing me, Indah said, "How would you dispose of a body so it wouldn't be found?"
  
  I'm not the public library feed, Senior Officer, go do your own research. I said, "If I told you, then you might find all the bodies I've already disposed of."
  
  "It's joking." Ratthi managed to sound like he completely believed that. "That's how it looks when it's joking."
  
  He sent me on the feed, Stop joking.
  
  Gurathin sighed and rubbed his face and looked off into the distance, like he regretted all his life choices that had led to him standing here right now. On our private feed connection, he sent, Or you could just show them where you were when this person was being killed.
  
  (Yeah, on reflection I think I misdirected in the wrong direction. It was the kind of thing a human or augmented human could get away with saying, not a rogue SecUnit. Even if they knew I was just being an asshole, I'd made them wonder, I'd put the idea in their heads.)
  (And now if I did have to kill some GrayCris agents, I'd have to be really careful about what I did with the bodies.)
  (It was probably better to make it look like an accident.)

  
  
  murderbot—winning hearts and minds and complaining about it all the way...
  
  thank you for your service. i would hug you if you'd let me.
  
  ****************************************
  i was told by the murderbotters among you to read book 6 BEFORE book 5 and, like murderbot, i am learning how to trust humans, so i hope i don’t regret this crazy backwards-seeming choice and end up having to launch a drone into anyone’s face (okay, so i MAY have read the first few pages of
  Network Effect before giving in to murderbot-fan advice and saw the part about launching drones into annoying human faces)
  
  fingers crossed! for the sake of your collective faces.
  
  
  come to my blog!
• 
  Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin

  I can’t wait to get the hardback for my collection. I love Murderbot and I always feel sorry for him/her. 😕. I wish MB was my real life friend 😫
  
  Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
• 
  Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller

  [4.5/5 stars] I’ll be the first to admit that I love Murderbot so much that anything published in the series immediately gets a baseline rating of three stars… anything I find particularly amusing above and beyond expectation launches it up from there. The full-length novel (book #5) had all the Murderbot attributes but, after some distance from my initial impressions (and review), I don’t think the extended plot did the story any favors. It was a bit repetitive and could’ve benefitted from a more generous edit. Coming home to another novella in Fugitive Telemetry was exactly what the series needed to refresh itself back absolutely superb rather than just merely awesome.
  
  I loved this one. Probably my second favorite after Rogue Protocol. As always, Murderbot was a scream (the humor kind), but what struck me in this one was how much the character has grown. It’s definitely still an antisocial introvert, but you can now read between the lines to see that it actually is finding a bit of begrudging comfort out of its “relationships” and gets a little butt-hurt whenever someone snubs it over a prejudice. My favorite scenes here were the ones involving it trying to work with the humans on their very inefficient terms. Hysterical.
  
  The mystery was very satisfying and the pacing was spot-on. I had to stop myself from devouring too fast because who knows when we’ll get another one. Martha Wells has truly created a unique voice that is as memorable as it is funny.
  
  Recommendations: I’m a huge fan of everything about this series and plan to continue recommending it as often as I can. Murderbot is my spirit animal. I don’t care how much I read, I’ll never get tired of his sardonic nature. The series is especially recommendable because the installments are so short – they give people a chance to try them out without a huge time commitment. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was sold on the very first line of book 1…
  
  Via The Obsessive Bookseller at
  www.NikiHawkes.com
  
  Other books you might like:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Richard Derus

  WINNER OF THE 2022 LOCUS AWARD—BEST NOVELLA! Watch the award ceremony
  here.
  
  WINNER OF
  THE HUGO FOR BEST SERIES, 2021 WORLDCON: DisCon III!
  
  #Murderbot fans! Does it get better than this? Knowing that we are mighty & got Author Wells onto the NYT Bestseller list...at #4...*happy dance* Go get one now!
  
  Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up in spite of the dull thud of a dropped plot-point that I needed more of
  
  What Murderbot needed it got
  
  This is a locked-room murder mystery with
  Twelve Years a Slave overtones. Much much good action and some serious character development. Don't start here, but don't let the door hit you standing around waiting for it to go on sale before reading it.
  
  When we come onto Preservation Station, we're greeted by a world that...doesn't work like the one you and I are used to:
  

  (Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.)

  
  Thus Author Wells makes plain that Preservation Station and Alliance doesn't exist on the Corporate Rim's terms...it interfaces with them, but doesn't make their system its own. I'd wondered about that. I'm very grateful she took the time to say out loud (well, in parenthesis, where Murderbot says a lot of important stuff) what I'd been trying to figure out.
  
  What isn't hard to figure out is what Murderbot's appeal is to us unaugmenteds:
  

  ...the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module.
  –and–
  (I don’t know why bot behaviors that are useless except to comfort humans annoy me so much.) (Okay, maybe I do. They built us, right? So didn’t they know how this type of bot took in visual data? It’s not like sensors and scanners just popped up randomly on its body without humans putting them there.)

  
  There's nothing more fun than hearing your inner monologue made outer by a belovèd character speaking it in words. I, too, find the stupid soothing behaviors necessary to interact as frictionlessly as possible with people I don't like very irritating...especially when they get in the way of accomplishing stuff that needs doing, now.
  
  What makes the series especially appealing to me, apart from Murderbot, is the grace notes that Author Wells give us. Murderbot came close to getting a sidekick bot this installment, and something suggests to me that it could still happen. A bot working in the hotel where Murderbot has traced our murder victim to is **eager** to help with the investigation. Murderbot isn't eager to be helped once it has what it needs. "(The bot’s name is Tellus. They name themselves and hearing about it is exhausting.)" thinks Murderbot of the poor basic bot. Now go look at the layers in this simple throw-away
  here. "Hearing about is exhausting" doesn't even *begin*, Murderbot! But what a lovely easter-egg for the restlessly curious.
  
  Then there's Murderbot's ongoing quest to discover what its origins mean. The corporate entities out after Murderbot and its chosen family (Dr. Mensah and her folk) have occupied Murderbot's threat-assessment module and its tactical programs for so long that it hasn't seen how very human it's becoming:
  

  Maybe I’d been waiting too long for GrayCris to show up and try to kill us all. I was thinking like a CombatUnit, or, for fuck’s sake, like a CombatBot.
  –and–
  I pulled the schematic from the instructions and found the transponder was buried in the sealed drive unit.
  Oh, you have to be kidding me. I’d be pissed off at the humans but I had brought this thing up here without checking.
  –and–
  This meant no bot pilot that I could get information from. That was depressing. I had no idea what else I was supposed to do as a member of this group and just following humans around listening to them talk felt a lot like just being a SecUnit again. I mean, I am a SecUnit, but … You know what I mean.

  
  Yes, Murderbot, we all know what you mean. It's the way many of us feel a lot of the time, too. You'd be amazed how human you really are.
  
  And don't stalk off all offended. You're really the best of us, not just the rest of us. Not Festivus for you.
• 
  Bradley

  Socially distancing Muderbot? Check
  Despairing about other's security systems? Check
  Murder?
  
  Oh, wait, our murder bot is SOLVING A MURDER that she didn't actually commit. Ah. Check.
  
  
  This novella is quite in line with the previous ones. Light loner humor, mystery, and comp-talk. This is definitely for fans of the rest of the series, but I should mention that there's nothing really new about it. I admit I liked the full-length novel more, (and the timeline suggests that this novella comes before that).
  
  
• 
  Char

  Murderbot is back and lands right in the middle of what amounts to a locked room mystery, but on a space station. If it's Murderbot, I'm in!
  
  Preservation Station becomes the scene of a crime and our favorite SecUnit is hired on as a consultant to station security to help solve it. Between trying to overcome flat out racism, (or er, SecUnitism), trying to protect its charges on the station and trying to solve the mystery of a dead traveler, Murderbot has its hands full and would rather just relax and watch more episodes of Sanctuary Moon. Will Murderbot be able to solve the mystery and go back to watching its feeds? You'll have to read this to find out!
  
  I admit to being a bit confused at first because last I knew Murderbot was supposed to be working with ART. Because of that it took me a little while to get into this story, and to be honest, this felt more like an earlier Murderbot tale, now being told out of place.
  
  Even though I enjoyed this entry in the series, it felt more like filler than the previous books. I was looking forward to the relationship between ART and our SecUnit being filled out more, but here if felt like we were looking back instead.
  
  Even so, this was an entertaining read, because Murderbot is full of sarcasm and wit, and seems more and more human every time I read more about it. I'll be continuing the series, but I just didn't come out of this read as excited as I was going into it.
  
  *Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this novella in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*
• 
  K.J. Charles

  Murderbot, enough said. Delightful as ever.
• 
  J.L. Sutton

  “Yeah, good luck with that. Trying to get humans not to touch dangerous things was a full-time job.”
  
  
  
  When I picked up Martha Wells' Fugitive Telemetry (Muderbot #6), I hadn't realized I had skipped Murderbot #5. It didn't matter as Fugitive Telemetry is a very satisfying standalone murder mystery. Don't get me wrong. Having read the first four installments in the Murderbot Series let me appreciate the context of this case playing out on Preservation Station as well as the humor and personality of Murderbot. As an added bonus, I get to go back and read Network Effect (Murderbot #5). 4.25 stars
  
  “All I wanted to do was watch media and not exist. I said, You know I don’t like fun.”
  
  “(I guess the feed isn’t adequate for all forms of communication, particularly those that involve a lot of glaring.)”
  
• 
  Phrynne

  In which Murderbot discovers a dead body and has to assist security personnel in discovering the murderer. A sci fi murder mystery with Murderbot in it. Bliss!
  
  If like me you are a Murderbot tragic then you already know how it will go. Lots of sarky comments about humans in general, plenty of humorous moments and some dangerous ones too where Murderbot fights its way out of tight corners. I loved the way it constantly talked itself into how to deal with the people it was working with. There are some big personality changes since the first books.
  
  This book is short and concise with plenty of action. Martha Wells has developed the perfect anti hero in this character. Long may she keep writing this series!
• 
  Mara

  Murderbot investigating an actual murder? Murderbot in a murder mystery??? Yes, please, thank. you. The snark was particularly dialed up in this one (which, hey, I'm not mad at), and special snaps to Pin-Lee and Indah as the stand out side characters this time around. All in all, a very fun novella that quenches (at least for today) my never ending thirst for all things Murderbot
• 
  Jonathan O'Neill

  3.5 ⭐
  
  There’s a homicide case on “preservation fucking station”, the home of Mensah and the rest of the preservation survey team that we’ve come to kind-of-but-not-really know throughout the series so far. Mbot is inclined to assist Station Security with their investigation, despite neither party being over the moon about the idea, due to a concern that the evil GrayCris Corporation may be involved in the murder and this would not bode well for the safety of Mensah and the gang. So, we see Bot Bot having to deal with a new cast of entirely generic characters that lead off hating/fearing him but ultimately come to appreciate him for his competence as a security (murder) bot and his willingness to abstain from displaying such competence against themselves and the rest of the residents on Preservation.
  
  At this point, I can confidently say to you, dear reader, that if you didn’t enjoy the first book in the Murderbot Diaries, ‘All Systems Red’, then you won’t enjoy any of the subsequent releases. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ seems to be Well’s motto with this particular series.
  I have to confess; I’ve gone into the last couple of novel(la)s with a little bit of pre-emptive negativity. See, I’ve wanted the scope of the series to expand and become something much more epic, which it’s perfectly capable of doing, since finishing ‘Rogue Protocol’, the third book in the series but it was made abundantly clear, when that didn’t happen in the full-length novel ‘Network Effect’, that this is not the direction Wells is taking her baby.
  
  I can’t begrudge her that, it is her baby after all, but it does hurt my enjoyment a little bit presuming that all that’s in store for the future of the series is more of the same. The same running jokes about Mbot not wanting to do anything but watch TV shows (you can expect about a half dozen variations of this same comment per novella):
  
  ”If I was going to do this, I wanted to get started so I could make sure this anomalous murder wasn’t an indication of a threat to Mensah. Plus, I had a lot of downloaded shows to get through.”
  
  The same trademark/predictable (I suppose the two go hand-in-hand) snark from Mbot, which is great by the way but he does tend to just cycle through the same repertoire of commentary regarding his unique observation of humans. Funny? Yes… Done to death? Also yes!
  
  Despite all this, at 3.5 stars, I still clearly enjoyed this even despite the fact that you’ll know who the murderer is as soon as you hear the description of the type of weapon used (maybe before if you’re a better detective than me – highly probable). There’s just something unusually gratifying (in a second-hand sense) and even therapeutic about observing Mbot hacking foreign systems, kicking ass and taking names. I like to complain a lot but we all know I’ll be coming back for more!
• 
  Melindam

  Dear Murderbot,
  
  You are going to freak out when I say this out loud, but I WANT TO HUG YOU!
  
  
  
  
  
  O-KAY. That went as well as expected. :)
  
  So how about watching all episodes of "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" together, with EMOTIONS on our faces, but no hugs? Sounds better?
  
  
  
  
  Anyway, there's only one more thing to add: I loved
  Fugitive Telemetry and will be back for more books and attempt some more hugging.
  
  yours,
  
  Melinda
• 
  Montzalee Wittmann

  Fugitive Telemetry
  By Martha Wells
  
  Fugitive Telemetry is book 6 in the Murderbot Diary series, and here Martha Wells proves that a satisfying story doesn’t have to be 500 pages long. Each of these sci-fi thriller novellas are fewer than 200 pages, and very filling.
  
  Murderbot, the SecUnit’s secret name, is a combat-made killing machine that has decoded the governing device so it no longer needs to obey orders. No other SecUnit has ever done this and remained in one piece. Having the device gone, it says pretty much what it wants.
  
  Within a few sentences, the Murderbot’s personality comes to the surface, like a cantankerous recluse who is forced to socialize and actually talk to people. The banter is hilarious!
  
  Then comes murder. While killing is practically unheard of in their port, Murderbot knows a lot about death and is easily irritated with the slowness of human comprehension. Still, the mystery is on. Who is the “dead human?” Why was he killed? And where?
  
  The characters are well developed and lovable. Murderbot has really grown in the books too. From the first book to this one, it has grown acceptance for itself and for those closest to it. Murderbot still doesn’t feel comfortable around people due to its past. It doesn’t like people staring, and it still doesn’t like to talk to people.
  
  The remarkable world building makes the story really come to life. The various bots, drones, the interactions between them, the life and society rules are all amazing. The world isn’t just the background, it’s an intricate part of the story and plays a major role.
  
  If you haven’t started the series yet, start from the beginning with book one, All Systems Red. After I read this current book, I had to go back and read them all again, just because they are that good.
  
  This has been my favorite one so far. Action, mystery, high tech, lots of humor, social issues, and a Murderbot that has really grown on me. Murderbot may be a big, armored droid with big guns in its arms, but in many ways it’s more human than many people I know.
  
  I requested this book from the Publisher and NetGalley and the review is voluntary and all my own opinions. Originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com.
• 
  myo (myonna reads)

  i really enjoyed this sci-fi murder mystery especially seeing murderbot becoming more “human”
• 
  Beverly

  Five stars of course! This is a stellar addition to the Murderbot story. It is a locked room murder mystery, in that the murderer can't get off the planet. Everything is shut down until he or she or they is found. Murderbot is asked to help find the assassin by Mensah who knows how thorough and efficient the SecUnit is. The human head of security for Preservation is not thrilled to have this "violent" robot as a helper.
• 
  Daye

  reread: july 5, 2022
  
  original review: april 27, 2021
  A MURDERBOT MURDER MYSTERY.
  
  I COULDN’T HAVE ASKED FOR MORE.
• 
  Dylan

  It feels strange to give 3* to a book in one of my favorite series, but here we are, this was a disappointing read. It's not bad sci-fi, but it's definitely not up to the same standard as the rest of the series. I'm still just so baffled by the choice to write a novella set between book 4 and book 5, I would have much preferred to read something set after Network Effect and I think this would have worked better if it was provided in something along the lines of Side Jobs in the Dresden series, like a collection of smaller stories or something like that.
  
  There's almost zero character development for Murderbot, there aren't any characters to be invested in aside from Murderbot, the main plot is fine but doesn't really tie in to the rest of the series and the conclusion didn't really impress me either. Murderbot also doesn't really feel like Murderbot in this one, there's a lot of great humor in the first couple of chapters and then there's a good action sequence in the seventh chapter, but aside from that I felt like it easily could have been a story told with a different protagonist and that just made it all the more disappointing for me.
  
  Here's hoping for better things from the next book.
• 
  Ms. Smartarse

  Dr. Mensah effectively bullies Murderbot and the head of Preservation Station's Security into giving the former a consulting job in a murder investigation. Not only are the two participants woefully reluctant to work together, but the police force as a whole seems rather reluctant in accepting that a murder even took place. After all Preservation Station is such a peaceful society.
  
  Luckily, everyone's favorite SecUnit is paranoid enough more than happy to go looking for loopholes around the restrictions imposed on it.
  
  
  
  After the absolute amazingness of
  Network Effect, the 6th instalment in the Murderbot Diaries saga, was kind of a let down. Oh, it still exudes all the passive-aggressive humour we've been accustomed to from the lovable SecUnit. And Murderbot's actual investigative antics are not half bad.
  
  

  
  I just realized I don’t like the phrase “as far as I knew” because it implies how much you actually don’t know. I’m not going to stop using it, but I don’t like it as much anymore.
  
  She was listed as a Special Investigator. I didn’t know what that meant, but it was a good job title and honestly it made me a little jealous.
  

  
  
  The character development however was... kind of a let down. I so enjoyed seeing Murderbot strike up reluctant friendships with secondary/episodic characters in the previous books, that the lack of any memorable side character here was rather jarring. I suppose that some of the other bots were meant to provide the fodder for possible future friendships, or even a sad ending for one... unfortunately there's so little screen time for either of them, that I never get the time to get attached to any of them.
  
  Score: 3.55/5 stars
  
  I realise that this whole review makes this book sound dismal, when in fact I all but devoured it in no time. But that's only in comparison to the prequel. Alternately, I'm just impossible to please, and should thus be awarded the "chief nagger" title and be done with it all.
  
  

  
  I don’t know what I’m trying to get at with this. I’d make a better corporate spy? Probably? Except not being a corporate spy left a lot more time for media so that was just never going to be an option.
  

  
  
  =============
  Review of book 1:
  All Systems Red
  Review of book 2:
  Artificial Condition
  Review of book 3:
  Rogue Protocol
  Review of book 4:
  Exit Strategy
  Review of book 4.5:
  Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
  Review of book 5:
  Network Effect
• 
  Mari

  
  I love Murderbot so much. And this is Murderbot solving a mystery so like what more could I want? My opinion of each novella holds steady: fun, readable, easy to lose track of side characters because there are so many, but rescued by Murderbot and their AI pals. I picked up this series this year and now live in a perpetual state of wanting to rereading them and needing more. Inject it straight into my veins, Wells. THANKS.
• 
  Dennis

  A locked room murder mystery with Murderbot as one of the investigators on the case, which is especially funny since this takes place on Preservation.
  
  A dead body is found on Preservation Station and Dr. Mensah commends Murderbot to help Station Security trying to figure out what happened. Why am I saying this is funny? Because Preservation is a very peaceful place with a threat assessment of 7% ("to make it drop lower than that we’d have to be on an uninhabited planet") and Murderbot who is eye-rolling through its existence among incompetent humans anyway, finds itself in a place where the humans are even less accustomed to not fucking up at security.
  
  

  Oh good, maybe the security level would go from barely adequate to mostly adequate. I didn't make an expression because I knew Indah would be more annoyed by me not reacting than by me reacting.

  
  
  But MB is also in a situation where it has to find its place as a citizen. And there are some less funny and rather profound moments in regards to that.
  
  Overall this had the right mix between MB's sarcastic observations, an engaging murder mystery, hilarious interactions between Murderbot and humans, some action, a deepening of the bond between MB and its friends, and further exploration of the topic of slavery in the system.
  
  This novella, chronologically set between
  Exit Strategy and
  Network Effect, is another episode the stands well on its own, but surely benefits from the reader having previous experience with our favorite not-a-human, not-a-robot.
  
  It's also a nice change of pace, and I enjoyed seeing Murderbot in a new role.
  
  

  I had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.

  
  
  Then again, Murderbot remains Murderbot.
  
  

  Pin-Lee had promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.”
  
  I said, “It takes one to know one.”

  
  
  My favorite entry into the series since the second book.
  
  

  I know a ‘fuck off’ when I hear one. So, I fucked off.

  
  
  See you next in
  Network Effect.
• 
  Mogsy (MMOGC)

  5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum
  https://bibliosanctum.com/2021/04/18/...
  
  Detective Murderbot is the BEST Murderbot! Martha Wells returns to the short format with Fugitive Telemetry, the sixth volume released in the Murderbot Diaries sequence and it’s probably my favorite one yet—which is really saying something, considering how much I’ve enjoyed all the books. What can I say, but a murder mystery in space will do it for me every time!
  
  And this one doesn’t mess around. The story beings right away with the discovery of a dead body on Preservation Station, a quiet little outpost on which Murderbot finds itself along with Dr. Mensah while hiding out from GrayCris. The place isn’t exactly killer central, sending the entire station into lockdown and our protagonist’s risk assessment levels soaring. It’s possible that their enemies could have found them, but then again, the death might be completely unrelated. That’s what Preservation’s Senior Officer Indah is trying to figure out, along with support teams from Station Security and Port Authority.
  
  Murderbot being Murderbot, all it wants is to be left alone with its shows, but Dr. Mensah has other ideas. It had been a right challenge to convince the pertinacious Indah to take in a SecUnit, so in order to continue cultivating goodwill with their hosts, she believes it would be prudent for Murderbot to help out with the investigation as a consultant. While Murderbot isn’t at all happy with that plan (but then again, it seldom is), it knows Dr. Mensah is right. Plus, getting involved in the case might also mean gaining access to some of the security systems and data it had been denied before, and the sooner they can rule out a threat from GrayCris, the safer Dr. Mensah and her team will be.
  
  What follows next is a sequence of events that read more like a locked room mystery, but that’s not to say we don’t have many of the tried-and-true elements that made all the other Murderbot Diaries books such a hit. Theoretically, one can probably read Fugitive Telemetry as a standalone, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. This story will be much more enjoyable if you have read up to Exit Strategy, the ending of which explains why Murderbot now has reason to fear retribution from GrayCris, not to mention having a solid foundation of knowledge from the previous books would also lead to more appreciation for the characters and the relationships.
  
  As well, being able to understand the significance of society’s attitudes towards Murderbot is a crucial point to this novella. Time and time again, we’ve heard how humans fear and mistrust SecUnits, but so far in the series, our protagonist has spent a great deal of time traveling alone or has had its interactions mostly limited to Dr. Mensah and members of her team. This all changes in Fugitive Telemetry. For the first time, Murderbot’s designation is out in the open, which comes with its own set of unique challenges as most of the population still perceive rogue SecUnits as thoughtless killing machines. Of course, this situation would have been more tragic, if Murderbot’s overall pragmatism and wry commentary about the silly behaviors of humans didn’t make everything so damn hilarious.
  
  It was also profoundly satisfying to watch as Murderbot trounced the Preservation Station’s ragtag security team on threat assessment and defense strategy, though ultimately nothing could compare to the feeling of vindication as those in charge gradually began seeing our protagonist as more a person. All the while, we were also seeing a similar change in Murderbot as it grudgingly developed an appreciation for being a part of a team, and—against its better judgement—even started to feel invested in the lives and wellbeing of those affected by the murder investigation.
  
  Which leads me to the story itself. I’m not going to give away any more details of the plot, other than the fact it kept me hooked from start to finish, and I could not tear myself away. I honestly was surprised by the ending and did not anticipate a lot of the twists and turns. Despite its primary classification as a sci-fi novel, do not doubt that Fugitive Telemetry can hold its own in the mystery category, and even surpass expectations for the whodunnit genre.
  
  Bottom line, followers of the series owe it to themselves to also check out Fugitive Telemetry. For me, it was the perfect blend of entertaining sci-fi action and tantalizing murder mystery, though I also enjoyed seeing our favorite SecUnit continue to navigate the indeterminate world of human space and learning new lessons, both strange and wonderful. And if you still haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Murderbot yet, seriously—what are you waiting for?! Run, don’t walk, to pick up All Systems Red and begin this amazing journey, which I hope will last for a long time yet.
• 
  Nark

  hope this series goes on forever. i love murderbot 🥺
• 
  Kogiopsis

  More Murderbot for the soul!
  
  I am obviously not going to say anything particularly specific or risk even slight spoilers, so this review will be somewhat vague. The thing is, if you've read Murderbot thus far, you're gonna want to keep reading Murderbot, so I don't really think I need specifics to convince people to read this book.
  
  What it's left me contemplating is mostly... the bizarre way Murderbot makes friends, and the way that I find this process particularly heartwarming. The thing is, Murderbot is an asshole. Often on purpose. It should be really difficult to bond with, especially since it's basically trying to prevent attachments - and yet, people (both in-world and readers) keep getting attached! I think Fugitive Telemetry highlighted why: because for all its grumpy exterior, Murderbot is fundamentally a person of deep integrity. If it says it will help you, it will, and it will put itself in harm's way to do so. It doesn't renege on a promise, and it always makes a good faith effort. It's hard not to like someone like that, no matter how gruff they are. As they say, actions speak louder than words.
  
  The vaguest of possible spoilers: There's a moment near the end where Murderbot ruminates on what SecUnits are designed to do vs how humans tend to employ them which gets at this a little bit. It's interesting to contemplate, both in terms of how it impacts Murderbot and what it implies about SecUnits in general sort of being... twisted out of their original purpose.
  
  This book also came very close to hitting one of the big boxes on my Future Murderbot Adventures wishlist. We're not quite there, but between this and Network Effect... I am hoping for a particular step of character growth, and I am feeling increasingly sure it's going to happen sooner rather than later.
  
  
• 
  Fiona

  Just before I get started on a review for this absolutely amazing novella, let me take a page out of Murderbot's playbook and parentheses at you just a little bit.
  
  (So the title fits right into the "Future's...made of...virtual insanityFugitive Telemetry" part of
  this Jamiroquai song, and it's the only part of the song I know, so it's been on a 10 second loop in my head this whole time. This note is not even slightly relevant to the book, I just had to share the 90's earworm love.)
  
  Parentheses over with, this is one of my favourite Murderbot installments yet, though if pushed, I'm relatively sure they're all my favourite. Still, this one really does stand out by way of being a locked-room (station?) mystery that fits plot to beloved characters so perfectly.
  
  The full station threat assessment for murder was sitting at a baseline 8 percent. (To make it drop lower than that we'd have to be on an uninhabited planet.) (I've never been on a contract on an uninhabited planet because if I was on the planet on a contract then we'd be inhabiting it.)
  
  Prequelling the novel, this would make an excellent entry point into the series for new readers. There's no prior knowledge of the series needed, and Murderbot is on full snarky, secretly-caring form. Preservation and their policies, as ever, feel like the imaginary home away from home I've been missing, and we even get to be in on the inside bot jokes.
  
  Well, like the 90's earworms, one is never enough. Time for a series reread?
• 
  Algernon (Darth Anyan)

  “You have experience at this?”
  I said, “With dead humans? Sure.”
  [No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall, for f_ck’s sake.]
  
  Our old friend, the Murderbot, resides for now on Preservation Station, as a sort of bodyguard/friend of Mensah, the leader of this Libertarian society. When Station Security calls Mensah to inform her that a dead body has been discovered in one of the corridors of the old space hub, she takes the Murderbot along, hoping it will pull it out of its boredom.
  
  This is the sixth episode in the adventures of our sarcastic space robot, and we might think we know all there is to know about our killing machine [if not about its gender]. But Martha Wells doesn’t seem to run out of ideas about how to unveil more and more shades of her creation’s personality. Murderbot’s thinly disguised aggressivity [passive or overt] is no longer a surprise, but its deep seated yearning to belong, to be considered a person on an equal footing with the regular inhabitants of the station is generally known only to the select circle of scientists she had befriended on the first mission in the series. But it can hardly walk around the space port with a name like Murderbot.
  
  I could use it, and the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module.
  
  For the others, a military-grade bot is still the sort of monster you mention in order to scare misbehaving children or adults into increasing the security budget [and as a plot device in numerous soap operas on the feed]. So Mensah and her AI friend tread carefully around Preservation Station, trying to keep the true identity of the Murderbot secret. Even the issue of an identity card proves difficult, and is only approved after they settle on ‘SecUnit’ as a tag and a promise not to hack into the station’s security systems.
  
  So, the first job as a consultant for Station Security comes as a bit of a surprise for the ‘SecUnit’, packaged with the reluctant promise to collaborate on the dead human case with Senior Officer Indah.
  The case itself is an excellent example of a classic detective plot set in a science-fiction setting, with the SecUnit cast as the gumshoe forced to use human methods of investigation because it is forbidden to access the security files. Following clues about the cause of death and about the identity of the victim, SecUnit soon focuses on the Port Authority, where the victim apparently interacted with a couple of new arrivals from Corporation Space. A couple of low grade maintenance and service bots help along better than the human partners of SecUnit, partners she can’t stand anyway.
  
  Without giving out spoilers about the case, I will mention that the author packs quite a lot of information in the hundred pages or so of the novella, including the usual high octane action sequences and some social commentary on the dastardly acts of the mega-corporations who control much of the settled space in the galaxy. Musings about artificial intelligence and self awareness are the sort of stuff that puts the series into the award winning class. The humorous running commentary from the bot is what makes the series so much fun.
  
  “Wait, wait,” Matif was having a moment. “Are you saying these people were shipped to this belt as contract labor, but they’ve been there so long they’ve had families – children – and those children are being born into slavery? They aren’t allowed to leave?”
  
  Finally, both the Murderbot and the Station Security officers have hopefully learned something here about their own prejudices and forged a path to cross the divide between what we consider human and what we consider dangerous alien. On the plus side, Murderbot was so caught up in the case that it almost forgot to compulsively watch its extensive library of downloaded soap operas . And this looks promising for us readers when ‘SecUnit’ will be asked to help the puny, bleeding humans once more.
  
  “I’ll authorize the hard currency payment for you. And I assume you’re open to another contract the next time something weird happens.”
  I paused in the doorway. The expected wave of depression at the idea of ever doing this again had somehow not happened. Huh. I said, “Only if it’s really weird.”
  She said, “Understood.”
  
  >>><<<>>><<<
  
  Bonus mini-review for Compulsory , a very short story set in the timeline before All Systems Red , meaning before the SecUnit revealed its true nature to humans. It functions very well as an appetizer for potential new readers, setting up the themes in the series nicely, and it can be found easily enough online, since it was published in the ‘Wired’ magazine under the heading The Future of Work’
  
  It’s not like I haven’t thought about killing the humans since I hacked my governor module. But then I started exploring the company servers and discovered hundreds of hours of downloadable entertainment media, and I figured, what’s the hurry? I can always kill the humans after the next series ends.
  
  As I already noted in the main review, when the Murderbot gets bored [most of the time] , it likes to watch illegally downloaded soap operas, in particular The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon . Doing contract duty for a mining concern doesn’t tax its attention much, anyway.
  
  Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember, I hate this stupid mine the most. But the humans hate it more. My risk-assessment module predicts a 53 percent chance of a human-on-human massacre before the end of the contract.
  
  Before its gloomy predictions come to fruition, a minor accident cuts into the entertainment feed: one of the miners falls down the garbage shaft and is about to be incinerated while Murderbot must sit and wait for instructions from the central computer on the mining station.
  
  You would think dealing with this would be my job. But no, my job is: 1) to prevent the workers from stealing company property, everything from tools to disposable napkins from the mess hall; 2) to prevent the workers from injuring and/or killing management, no matter how tempting the prospect might be; and 3) to prevent the workers from intentionally harming one another in ways that might diminish productivity. So HubSystem’s response to my alert was to tell me to stay in position.
  
  So, before I end up quoting the whole story here, let me just say this is a typical Murderbot situation, dealt with expediently by our favourite artificial intelligence, so it can return to episode 44 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon
  
  Enjoy!