BOOK: Exit Strategy (2018)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Exit Strategy Year: 2018 Author: Martha Wells Length: 226 minutes / 3.77 hours Until now, I've enjoyed the somewhat serial format of the novellas from the Murderbot Diaries series. Each story grows the story of the main character with a concise plot that does a little world building along the way. It didn't matter if the characters changed between each book, as the focus was always on the first person perspective. With Exit Strategy, we loop back to the beginning as old faces come back into the major thrust of the plot. I appreciate that there seems to be an overarching narrative across this series. Now that things are connecting together, it feels like a much more thought-out universe instead of the "flavor of the month" stories that the series could have become. Granted, with each one being so short, this book feels like a solid arrival in the second half of the entire story arc—maybe even the pivotal half-way point. The more the titular...
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BOOK: Artificial Condition (2018)

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Artificial Condition Year: 2018 Author: Martha Wells Length: 202 minutes / 3.36 hours After being disappointed with the length of the first entry in the Murderbot Diaries series, I'm glad that I stuck with it and read the second book, Artificial Condition. While All Systems Red was necessary to introduce the concept of a sentient (and pacifist) murderbot, this book was much more interesting from a narrative perspective. At this point, I'm used to the short length of these stories, but after reading this book now I have to know how the rest of the series plays out. The titular murderbot in this book felt much more fleshed out (ha ha) as a character. Having moved past the phase where it recognizes that its sentience is an anomaly, the challenge of fitting into society as a murderbot or as a human as the circumstances warranted was much more enthralling. The interactions with other AI like ART were much more entertaining than merely hearing about how...
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BOOK: All Systems Red (2017)

by benmweilertNo Comments
All Systems Red Year: 2017 Author: Martha Wells Length: 199 minutes / 3.12 hours Sentient artificial intelligence is a topic that science fiction has covered for decades. Somehow, in all that time, I haven't really come across many stories from the perspective of the newly sentient AI. All Systems Red scratches that itch in a way that's intriguing but merely feels like a prologue to something much more interesting. Perhaps I'm just used to longer-form stories that explore such a complex topic like this. Still, to so densely convey what it's like to be a robot now in control of its destiny takes a certain level of skill. The problem is, it's been about six months since I listened to this audiobook and I can't recall much about it other than it's in first person via the "Murderbot" point-of-view. I guess there was some humor involved with this robot describing things that we as humans almost take for granted—using the external observer to point out...
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