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Rogue Protocol

(The Murderbot Diaries #3)

Martha Wells (Goodreads Author)

4.27 · Rating details · 35,024 ratings · 3,313 reviews

SciFi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is again on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

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Hardcover, 158 pages

Published August 7th 2018 by Tor.com

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Start your review of Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Sep 07, 2017 carol. rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: fans of A.I.s, Murderbots

Shelves: sci-fi, novella, should-buy, i-am-not-a-robot, my-library-kindle

"Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that's how they treated it.
I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private."

Murderbot returns for a third and autumnal installment. 'Bot is a little more experienced, but honestly is making some familiar mistakes. As we all do, really, but I guess I expect more from a heartless killing machine "Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that's how they treated it.
I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private."

Murderbot returns for a third and autumnal installment. 'Bot is a little more experienced, but honestly is making some familiar mistakes. As we all do, really, but I guess I expect more from a heartless killing machine. In this installment, 'Bot is heading to a "terraforming" installation abandoned by the corporation GrayCris, hoping to find data for the fight between GrayCris and Dr. Mensah. Unfortunately, it means integrating itself into an exploration team that already includes an A.I.:

"When I called it a pet robot, I honestly thought I was exaggerating. This was going to be even more annoying than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated a pretty high level of annoyance, maybe as high as 85 percent. Now I was looking at 90 percent, possibly 95 percent."

I enjoyed it, but I don't know that it covered much new ground. The situation gave Murderbot insight into another kind of AI-human relationship, but plotting felt fairly familiar. I'm still not convinced of 'Bot's logic circuits (mild mid-plot spoiler: (view spoiler) even when limited to security concerns, but do think 'Bot is a much better A.I. than other characterizations (thinking of Sea of Rust here). I also felt questions raised about the amount of processing 'Bot was doing at certain points. All that said, I really enjoyed it, and it held up to a second read quite well.

Wells always manages to tap me in the feels along with engaging the brain-pan. She's good like that. I'm glad she's finally getting some long-overdue popular recognition (as opposed to her early Hugo-Neb nominated works), because I'd like to see her financially secure enough to keep dreaming up worlds.

If you like 'Bot and bots, you may also enjoy A Closed and Common Orbit (it really does stand alone), another A.I. book. If you think you enjoy Wells, I highly encourage you to give her other books a try, except she's a tricky one, and many of her books are very, very different from one another from the vaguely neo-Edwardian England The Death of the Necromancer to the matriarchal fantasy world of the Raksura. Find one that appeals and go with that.

Re-read July 2019: Still good. Reading the books more closely together, I get the emotional changes in Murderbot over time, and appreciate the Miki storyline better. I had to laugh out loud at 'Bot's response to it, a couple of times, though: "Fuck me." Bot's been watching too many trashy serials. ...more

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Feb 08, 2019 Emily (Books with Emily Fox) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Another adventure with my favorite antisocial A.I. aka Murderbot!

You'll love or hate the humor but it works for me. Quite frankly, Murderbot could do anything and I would enjoy it.

I hadn't loved book 2 but definitely enjoyed book 3. Will get my hands on book 4! ...more

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Jun 05, 2018 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, science-fiction

4.5 stars! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:

Martha Wells’ endearingly grumpy cyborg Security Unit Murderbot returns with a vengeance in Rogue Protocol, the third novella in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series. In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot heads off to Milu, a deserted terraforming facility in space, to investigate the past of a murky group called GrayCris, which we originally met in the first book in this series, the Nebula award-winning All Systems Red. GrayCris appears to be intent on illeg ...more

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Mar 06, 2018 Elle (ellexamines) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: z-2018reads, 5-star, y-2018releases, x-arcs, author-love, sff-scifi-dystopias, x-series

I’m going to stop reviewing these books because I’m not going to lie: this entire volume could be about Murderbot laughing at a cat video and I would enjoy it. I love the questions this series brings up of what makes a human, and I’m increasingly feeling like the answers are coming and coming fast. I love the fast-paced plot, I love the sweet human side characters, I love the tidbits of wordbuilding we get here [i know I never say this but I want more!!] and I adore the humor. Reading about an A ...more

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Sep 25, 2020 David Putnam rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this book a great deal. But not quite as much as the previous two. This one started slow. I think it was the lack of setting the conflict quick enough. Right after the conflict was set, the book hit a wallow and I almost put the book down. I was glad I didn't, the end of the book grabbed me by the throat and drug me through. I'm not sure why book two and book three are broken into two books. Combined they make an average length book. They also deal with the same topic the investigation ...more

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May 19, 2020 Kevin Kuhn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fans of the Murderbot series

Shelves: science-fiction

This is novella three in the Murderbot Series. For me, the series is beginning to feel a bit formulaic and has lost some of its charm. Part of the issue for me, is that 1&2 in the series are so good, it’s tough for author Wells to keep up with my expectations. It’s still a great series and I’ll quickly move on to #4 but it felt like a little speed bump in the road.

We start this installment with Murderbot on a transport filled with annoying humans. In the Murderbot Series most of the human’s are This is novella three in the Murderbot Series. For me, the series is beginning to feel a bit formulaic and has lost some of its charm. Part of the issue for me, is that 1&2 in the series are so good, it’s tough for author Wells to keep up with my expectations. It’s still a great series and I’ll quickly move on to #4 but it felt like a little speed bump in the road.

We start this installment with Murderbot on a transport filled with annoying humans. In the Murderbot Series most of the human’s are either weak, annoying, or evil. On the transport, antisocial Murderbot somehow ends up having to play referee in a series of petty squabbles and fights amongst the worried, irritable, and bored humans. Wells also sneaks in some background information to assist in recapping a bit of Murderbot’s personality and situation for new and returning readers. I found it be a rough start with a great deal of telling and passive-tense writing that is out of place with the rest of the series. However, Wells eventually gets her feet back under her, when Murderbot arrives at a nearly abandoned Milu Station.

Milu Station is a cool setting as it’s nearly abandoned, and Wells creates much dread with this eerily empty location. Here we get introduced to several humans and Miki, a childlike and naïve robot. We seem to be getting one non-human character a novella, each with an exaggerated human trait. Still, it’s what makes the Murderbot Series great, and while Miki isn’t my favorite of these characters, the interaction of Mike and Murderbot is one of the best things about this novella. The other ‘best thing’ is action and once it finally gears up around the 40% mark, it continues pretty much non-stop until the end. Once again, Martha Wells does a great job of telling a complete story but adding a little more to overall series plotline. There are a few twists and a real gut punch that help this novella stay interesting.

Four stars for this slowly starting, but eventual action-packed story in the Muderbot Series that continues to entertain with unique and amusing non-human characters. ...more

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Sep 19, 2018 Jilly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

The good news is that when the robots rebel and decide to kill us all - because let's face it, it's gonna happen - we may have a surprising super-hero in Murderbot. Our favorite snarky, tv-addicted, misanthrope robot can't seem to help him-or-her self when it comes to saving humans. Every time he/she tries to get away from us, he/she ends up needing to save human lives. A very unlikely and begrudging hero.

Heroes come in a lot of different ways.

This book is the continuing story of Murderbot, so i ...more

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Aug 05, 2018 Bradley rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-shelf, sci-fi

Urban fantasy has made it to the broken assassinbot AI stage in a big way. Just as much internal monologues as the other field, but this is entirely a corporate/spaceships/planetary colonies kind of popcorn fiction.

Is this is as good as the other two delicious entries? I think so. Maybe not quite as interesting as the last, but introducing the near-skinjob Miki who is treated at worst as a pet and at best as a valued member of the team was a real treat for us, if not for our favorite broken assa ...more

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Mar 24, 2020 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it really liked it

Shelves: hardback, own, sci-fi

4.5

I loved you, Miki!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

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Apr 25, 2020 Nataliya rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-reads, favorites

“Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas.
(Yes, that was sarcasm.)”

Our not-too-social, cynical, sulky and very snarky Murderbot, “a rogue SecUnit with a record of past mass murder”, hates to admit that he cares, especially when his supposed not-caring was his equivalent of security blanket (yes, pun intended) until now. But care he does, and so, instead of choosing a life of watching space soap operas he is headed to Milu, a planet where he just may fin

“Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas.
(Yes, that was sarcasm.)”

“If there was one thing good about this situation, it was reinforcing how great my decisions to (a) hack my governor module and (b) escape were. Being a SecUnit sucked. I couldn’t wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage of hitching rides on bot-piloted transports and watching my serials.”

And what would a trip to a dangerous corner of space be without finding a bunch of human researchers who desperately need protection and face certain death without the expertise of a certain Security Consultant?

“A SecUnit’s job is to protect its clients from anything that wants to kill or hurt them, and to gently discourage them from killing, maiming, etc., each other. The reason why they were trying to kill, maim, etc., each other wasn’t the SecUnit’s problem, it was for the humans’ supervisor to deal with. (Or to willfully ignore until the whole project devolved into a giant clusterfuck and your SecUnit prayed for the sweet relief of a massive accidental explosive decompression, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.)”

This installment really made me think about what future holds for Murderbot. Yes, he is free from the governor module and does not have to obey command of humans who view his as nothing more than a dangerous tool, a deadly weapon, something to cautiously use and discard when when not needed. He is seen as property, not person. And that obviously does not sit well with him.

“The only thing I knew for certain was that Preservation didn’t need SecUnits, and their idea of a SecUnit being considered a free agent meant I’d have a human “guardian.” (In other places they just call that your owner.)”

He does not want to be property, but he does not want to be a pet robot either. Along the way he meets one of those - sweet loyal Miki - but even though at times he almost envies the life of a bot who is loved and cherished, he refuses to even consider trading free will and his own agency for the comforts of pampered life as a “pet”. Slavery taught him the need for fierce independence - but it’s hard when society denies you that and when your disguise remains an obedient SecUnit.

“Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it.
I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”
—————
“What did Miki have that I wanted? I had no idea. I didn’t know what I wanted.
And yes, I know that was probably a big part of the problem right there.”

“Somewhere there had to be a happy medium between being treated as a terrifying murder machine and being infantilized.”

It’s the sheer unfairness of the disparity between who you are and what society considers you to be that is infuriating. It’s the complacency of those treating you as property and the denial of any free will to the other SecUnits - any one of whom has the same potential of being a full-fledged person just like M-Bot but is denied that opportunity out of plain inconvenience it would present to those who are “owners” - that elicits real emotion from me, a cynical reader, let alone from Murderbot himself.

“Oh, Murderbot, what did you do?
(I don’t even know. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I went from being told what to do and having every action monitored to being able to do whatever I wanted, and somewhere along the way my impulse control went to hell.)”

Murderbot’s emotional development is also fascinating. It’s done slowly and subtly, but the benefit of binging all the novellas in one sitting is the ability to follow the inevitable change as he gets more comfortable with the idea of personhood. Some anxieties are lessened, some heightened, new emotions is processed and a bit of frustrated anger surfaces more and more through the snark and the sarcasm. It’s done very well, a epitome of showing, not telling.

And just like the two novellas before, it’s fun, it’s a page-turner, it’s captivating, and I love it to bits.

5 stars.

“Again, I know in the telling it sounds like I was on top of this situation but really, I was still just thinking, Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”

—————————

My review of the first novella, “All Systems Red” is here.
My review of the second novella, “Artificial Condition” is here.
My review of the fourth one, “Exit Strategy”, is here.
My review of the fifth story (and the first full-length novel), “Network Effect”, is here. ...more

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Dec 11, 2020 Tim rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2010s, reviewed, science-fiction

Murderbot is back. This time it decides to take an active approach to bringing down the corporation who sabotaged its... it hates to call them friends, but what other word is there? The other participants of the first book's plot. Yes, participants, that will do. Going to a planet that had its teraforming shut down, Murderbot investigates why the project was abounded. Along with a new group of scientists and and extremely friendly robot named Miki, Murderbot discovers another plot and *sigh* has ...more

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Jun 12, 2018 Niki Hawkes - The Obsessive Bookseller rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arcs

Niki's Narrative Novella Review [Part 3/4]: I braced myself for this book. My trust in this author and this series was so strong by this point that I just hopped in and buckled up without even asking where we were going. And I was treated to possibly my favorite of the bunch (it’s like combing fine hairs). With all the key components right up front, some amazing Murderbot feels that kind of rocked some of my perspectives on life (that’s deep), and crazy whirlwind action that almost gave me whipl ...more

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Jun 15, 2018 TS Chan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arc-review-copy

I received an advanced reading copy from Tor.com in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.

I wish to echo Ann Leckie and simply say "I love Murderbot!"

The Murderbot Diaries is indeed shaping up to be a fantastic series of novellas that tick all the right boxes, albeit in a smaller-sized package of excellent science fiction action and empathetic character development.

The Murderbot, despite all her desires to be left alone, investigating into the suspicious affairs of the massive GrayCris Corpor ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 Beverly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-thriller, science-fiction-thriller

Another awesome adventure with my favorite killer robot, Rogue Protocol has much more heart than the last two installments with the introduction of Miki, a sweet helper robot. Miki is as loyal as a puppy and as kind and devoted to its humans, as they are to it. Murderbot finds this relationship between human and machine, at times revolting and at other times endearing. Murderbot is a tad envious of Miki, but has to set up a connection with it to get information it needs. Mayhem ensues.

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Oct 23, 2020 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it

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

Martha Wells' Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3) takes a little longer to kick into action than the previous two installments, but was still fun. Murderbot's interactions with other AI, this time Miki, continues to be among the highlights. Miki is not nearly as interesting as Murderbot; however, Miki's personae allows the reader to speculate not only about the range of AI functions and abilities, but also about how we'll try to turn our AIs into friends. The last Murderbot installment, Artifi ...more

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Jun 14, 2020 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

”’Oh, Murderbot, what did you do?’

(I don’t even know. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I went from being told what to do and having every action monitored to being able to do whatever I wanted, and somewhere along the way my impulse control went to hell.)

‘The only way out of this was to kill them.’”

I’ve been stuck in long, droning meetings with annoying, stupid humans before where I would briefly run a Tarantino scenario through my head where I emerge from the conference room bloodied, ...more

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Feb 13, 2019 Robin (Bridge Four) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reads, 4-5-stars, beautifully-broken-bastards, no-kissy-kissy, sci-fi, shorts, audio-challenge-2020

Sale Alert: Kindle daily deal 8Sept20 for $2.99

Reread starts today 27Apr2020

Still just as good the second time through. Really enjoying my time with MB.

Original Review

Murderbot is again witty, sarcastic, grumpy and a little bit on the broken side. All things I love in a hero. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. I’m totally rooting for them way more than any of the humans *shrugs*.

I had so much fun with Murderbot and ART in the last book that I was worried this one wouldn’t l Sale Alert: Kindle daily deal 8Sept20 for $2.99

Reread starts today 27Apr2020

Still just as good the second time through. Really enjoying my time with MB.

Original Review

Murderbot is again witty, sarcastic, grumpy and a little bit on the broken side. All things I love in a hero. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. I’m totally rooting for them way more than any of the humans *shrugs*.

I had so much fun with Murderbot and ART in the last book that I was worried this one wouldn’t live up to it. But I was happily surprised that not only did it hold up well compared to the books before it, Rogue Protocol also gave us another facet of the character that is Murderbot.

“Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas.
(Yes, that was sarcasm.)”

Murderbot is traveling to the Milu on the outer rim to verify some postulated information that GrayCris (a bad company) has been offing the competition in order to mine artifacts from an ancient civilization and hiding it as a mining operation. It’s stowed away on another transport and can’t help but notice that this one isn’t nearly as much fun as ART, but what is?

When Murderbot gets to the area they are interested in investigating there is a team there also trying to get to the main mining site to investigate and they have a pet bot named Miki. This poses a conundrum to our Murderbot, trust the pet bot to get access to the team or try to go it alone and probably get caught. Better to use the bot Miki but that has some emotional pushback that was unexpected as well.

“Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it.
I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”

From there it is another great ride where Murderbot accidentally stumbles into a group of humans to protect, makes a few friends and thwarts the bad guys…mostly. Rogue Protocol tugged on my heartstrings a little more than I thought it would as Murderbot makes a few more discoveries about themselves and starts developing some morals of their own.

“Right, so the only smart way out of this was to kill all of them. I was going to have to take the dumb way out of this.”

This was full of fun and some good surprises as well as a bad surprise. I’m loving this series and can’t wait to see where the next installment goes. ...more

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Aug 22, 2018 Gary rated it it was amazing

A call from Dr. Mensah sends Murderbot back on the trail of GrayCris, the company that tried to kill all the researchers Murderbot was assigned to protect in All Systems Red. GrayCris is still looking to camouflage its alien artifact recovery schemes, so Murderbot is in a good position to damage them by uncovering the truth about their illegal activities on Milu, where the company recently abandoned a terraforming facility. As usual, a group of humans mucks things up, and Murderbot must rescue t ...more

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Aug 09, 2018 Manuel Antão rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Pro- or Anti-Wittgenstein SF: “Rogue Protocol” by Martha Wells

“I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”

In “Rogue Protocol” by Martha Wells

Is the SecUnit Pro- or Anti-Wittgenstein?

Wittgenstein is often cited by believers in the possibility of more or less "sentient" AI. He is cited because he seems to re-cast our understanding of what we mean when we talk about our own sentience, an ...more

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Mar 16, 2020 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindled

Oh, Murderbot!

Oh my poor, sweet Murderbot. Your pain is real to me because Author Wells is skilled in the art of inflicting pain in innocent readers. Best of the three stories by a good margin.

Murderbot continues its quest to fully understand the horrible life it's led as a slave, one sentient enough to be autonomous but still able to be customized to perform different complex security functions (which implies being programmable, therefore malleable, therefore manipulable in the vilest of ways) Oh, Murderbot!

Oh my poor, sweet Murderbot. Your pain is real to me because Author Wells is skilled in the art of inflicting pain in innocent readers. Best of the three stories by a good margin.

Murderbot continues its quest to fully understand the horrible life it's led as a slave, one sentient enough to be autonomous but still able to be customized to perform different complex security functions (which implies being programmable, therefore malleable, therefore manipulable in the vilest of ways) but not allowed to develop its sapience. Author Wells does her usual bang-up job of making Murderbot an excellent companion on a picaresque quest to install sapience into its systems:

I didn’t have the combat stealth module anyway (I had never been upgraded with it, probably due to...the whole “killing all the clients” thing, go figure)...
***
Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
***
The core cutter had powered up and accessed my feed to deliver a canned warning and a handy set of directions. Why yes, I did want to disengage the safety protocols, thanks for asking.

The issue at hand this time, the reason Murderbot sweet-talked a fairly basic pilot bot into allowing it aboard a human-infested transport to a far outpost on the Corporation Rim...pause to appreciate that as Murderbot's quest for information (what humans call answers) to process what and why it became Murderbot in the first place that it travels in space beyond the reach of the corporation-first norms into low-security humans-first territory...is to collect more data on GrayCris. These corporate malefactors ("We were talking about GrayCris here, whose company motto seemed to be “profit by killing everybody and taking their stuff,” thinks Murderbot) are in the middle of a lawsuit war with Dr. Mensah and the entire Preservation team that bought Murderbot in All Systems Red.

The discoveries Murderbot makes are, well, unsurprising in that malefeasance and lawbreaking are involved. They are appalling in that corporate skulduggery explicitly involves murdering people to save the corporation money. Author Wells doesn't look on a safe, secure, "prosperous" world with no privacy and less respect for human dignity with the eye of faith. She sees what she sees and reports back to us. I mean, it's all a story, right, but it's not based on nothing. Is it.

So Murderbot visits beyond the Corporation Rim to discover what it suspects is bombshell information. Murderbot wants to help the human that bought it not in order to use it but in order to stop it being used. Murderbot applied its sentience to leave, it's not proper to say "escape," Dr. Mensah to begin its quest for sapience without knowing in advance that...

...apparently once you start, you can’t just stop. I wasn’t going to just send the geo pod data to Dr. Mensah. I was taking it to her personally. I was going back. Then I laid down on the floor and started Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon from episode one.

Murderbot's heading home. Family needs it. And Family comes first. ...more

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Sep 07, 2020 Spencer Orey rated it really liked it

I love these books.

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Aug 13, 2018 Lindsay rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

More Murderbot? Yes please!

Murderbot continues on its mission to find evidence to bring down the dodgy company GrayCris and in doing so gets to visit yet another site where the company committed its crimes. And almost inevitably, ends up having to protect a bunch of humans. The increasingly poorly-named Murderbot seems to do that an awful lot.

It's the voice. Murderbot's wry commentary on everything around itself and its own performance is absolutely the star of these books, even given that the p ...more

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Sep 10, 2018 Fiona rated it it was amazing

Shelves: absolute-favourites, kfa, scifi, short-n-sweet

The good thing about pretending to be an augmented human security consultant instead of a construct SecUnit is that you can tell the humans to shut up.

Rogue Protocol marks the third short entry in Murderbot's diaries, and once again our favourite anti-social bot has found a way to continue it's journey to evidence and eventual freedom - all going to plan, which of course it doesn't.

I didn't want to see helpless humans. I'd rather see smart ones rescuing each other

I feel you, Murderbot.

Unfortunat ...more

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Aug 13, 2018 Gavin rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

This was another fun instalment of Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries novella series.

I'm a big fan of Well's capitalist future gone awry sci-fi world and of her memorable and fantastic lead character, the security unit, Murderbot! Our favourite grumpy, socially anxious, security bot is the story's only POV character and that really works as Murderbot is a truly unique character with an engaging voice. Well's gets to inject a tone of humor into the story via Murderbot's wry observations on the t ...more

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Feb 26, 2019 Phrynne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Murderbot returns for part three of its adventures and manages to get involved in lots of kill or be killed action. There are humans to save, robots to befriend and other (bad) robots to destroy. These are such good books and I am very pleased I have still have part four to go.

Along the way our favourite rogue AI has started to develop feelings. Emotions are popping up and prompting a need to help humans and not hurt them. There is also a very good understanding now of why humans do what they do ...more

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Aug 08, 2018 Char rated it really liked it

Shelves: net-galley, tor, novellas, science-fiction, dark-fiction, series

ROGUE PROTOCOL, the third entry in the Murderbot series was a lot of fun!

This volume was a bit slow going at the beginning but once Murderbot got situated and the action started it became very difficult to put down. It is still trying to solve the mystery that started in the first volume and as more information is gleaned from various sources, Muderbot's position becomes more and more precarious.

What's fun about these books is that Murderbot isn't your average Security Unit (SecUnit) bot. It hac ...more

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Aug 11, 2018 Justine rated it really liked it

Shelves: novella, 2018-read

4.5 stars

Another excellent instalment in the Murderbot Diaries that has me anxiously awaiting the fourth and concluding novella in the series. The main character retains the trademark dry humour that makes Rin's voice so appealing to read. The story progresses nicely and continues to be tight and densely complex for such a short piece. Honestly, I can't get enough of these books. ...more

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Sep 08, 2020 Daye rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, novella

Martha Wells is at it again.. making me feel things for ships and bots and drones
(view spoiler)

despite that, I’m giving this one a 4 stars because I pretty much lost the plot about halfway through. surprisingly, I didn’t get attached to the human characters in this one (and there were a lot of human characters--maybe too many??) and the stakes just didn’t feel as high as with Murderbot’s previous adventures. I still really enjoyed it though. at this point, anything narra ...more

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Jan 24, 2019 Mel (Epic Reading) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: library-print

There is something about an androgynous (even though I think of Murderbot as a she and will refer to her this way in this review) snarky robot that can kill in an instant but has an obsession with serial shows that are essentially soap operas (as far as I can tell). Snarky Murderbot returns in this third installment of Martha Wells novellas as Murderbot works to gather more information about the illicit mining activities she was involved in before a mind-wipe made her forget.

Snarky
I can't tell ...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Ɗẳɳ 2.☊ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: alien-sci-fi, novella, the-final-frontier

Episode III, in which our beloved Murderbot continues its search for damning evidence of the GrayCris corporation’s nefarious dealings. Striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that its next leap will be the leap home.

Wait . . . that’s, um. Aw, screw it, close enough—my show’ll be back any minute now, so I gotta make this quick.

Okay, so Murderbot, right? He, she, it—or whichever gender-neutral pronoun it prefers—is attempting to dig up dirt on GrayCris. Not only to figur ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Play Book Tag: Rogue Protocol, by Martha Wells - 4 stars	7	24	Dec 13, 2018 02:42PM
New Murderbots discussion group!	1	17	Sep 17, 2018 08:57AM
Fantasy Buddy Reads: Rogue Protocol [Aug 14, 2018]	6	29	Aug 19, 2018 12:28AM

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About Martha Wells

Martha Wells

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Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), the Ile-Rien series (including The Death of the Necromancer) as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, media tie-ins (for Star Wars and Stargate: Atlantis), and non-fiction. Her most recent fantasy novel is The Harbors of the Sun in 2017, the final novel in The Books of the ...more