Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries (The Murderbot Diaries, 4) Hardcover – October 2, 2018

Brief recap. In All Systems Red GrayCris, which we now know to be a criminal organization that profits from illegal mining, murdered a DeltFall survey team and attempted to murder the PreservationAuth survey team. GrayCris thus (in what in retrospect looks like a classic shooting yourself in the foot maneuver) earned the enmity of Dr Mensah, the head of that team and PerservationAuth head of state, and our own much-beloved Murderbot, who was able to save Mensah and her team. Subsequently GrayCris ended up in what, in technical legal terminology, is called "deep doodoo". They are being sued down to their skivvies by PreservationAuth, DeltFall, and the Company that insured the survey teams (Murderbot's former owners).In Rogue Protocol Murderbot, who dislikes GrayCris even more than she (on pronouns, see my review of All Systems Red) dislikes most humans, tried to help Mensah out by traveling to Milu, where she hoped to catch GrayCris red-handed in illegal mining. As it happened, a survey team from GoodNightLander Independent (GI) was already active there and GrayCris, a bunch of creeps that obviously will stop at nothing, sent a couple of contract killers to kill the GI team, and also to destroy the evidence of previous illegal GrayCris activities. Murderbot saved the GI team and, killed the GrayCris contract killers, and came away with heaps and heaps of damning evidence against GrayCris.That all just happened. Now Murderbot is returning from (really escaping from) Milu. Monitoring newsfeeds, she discovers that GrayCris apparently just kidnapped Mensah.Wait, WHAT?What could have happened in the last few days to make GrayCris take such desperate action?Oh, ... Right.So now Murderbot has to save Mensah. That's the plot of Exit Strategy, and I'll say no more about it, but that it's a typical action and strategy-packed Murderbot adventure.The real story of the Murderbot Diaries is Murderbot's personal evolution. She IS a person -- that has been clear from All Systems Red. Since becoming a rogue SecBot (and therefore a fugitive) she has found herself compelled to act human in order to escape detection and capture. The early chapters of Exit Strategy have many moments like this one:"I’d been pretending to be human off and on since I left Dr. Mensah, but this was the first time I’d had anything on me that officially labeled me as human. It was weird.I didn’t like it."She even finds herself compelled to greater sacrifices, such as this one,'I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “Uh, you can hug me if you need to.”'I also enjoyed this little dialog with Gurathin,'“I don’t want to be a pet robot.”'“I don’t think anyone wants that.”'That was Gurathin. I don’t like him. “I don’t like you.”'“I know.”'He sounded like he thought it was funny. “That is not funny.”'“I’m going to mark your cognition level at fifty-five percent.”'“*Bleep* you.”'“Let’s make that sixty percent.”'I love Murderbot, and I'm even beginning to like Gurathin a bit.So, this was a good book. Murderbot continues her evolution towards whatever she's going to become, but remains the adorably cuddly ball of barbed wire we know and love.

I was really just looking for a sci fi adventure with the spaceships and whatnot and, at first, that's what I got. It kind of crept up on me that the story developments hinged on how characters cared about each other rather than on tech macguffins and shooting.To be clear, there's plenty of adventure and action. The world building is broad but believable, with the confidence to not paint itself into stupid corners by trying to over explain things, although there are some great details tucked in here and there.This might be overreach on my part, but I would swear this series of books about MurderBot is as much a contemplation on human connection and kindness as it is about the bots that murder.

This entire series is comfort reading for me. I've read them all at least 4 or 5 times, and I keep coming back. I think I use them to rebuild my humanity and selfhood when I feel it slipping or I've been too stressed.If you haven't read any of the Murderbot stories, start at the beginning. Each one builds on what happened before, but aside from an occasional remark about previous experiences, such as anyone might make, you won't have to wade through a full and exhaustive synopsis of every character and event that ever happened. Can you tell that's one of my biggest turn-offs?Oddly, I don't like any of her other work nearly as well, thoigh the writing is always excellent.Thank you Jenny Crusie for writing about how good these are. I might never have found them on my own.

I can honestly say that this 4th novella was, in my opinion, the very best of the Murderbot installments. It went quickly – just like the preceding three. It was fast paced and fun – just like the preceding three. It’s hard not to fall in love a bit with Murderbot in this novella – just like the preceding three. What made this one so fun was the fact that it brought the original group of characters back together, particularly Mensah. I may be the only one who feels this way but I actually found her to be the most intriguing character in the book – more so even than Murderbot. She is calm. She is mature. She is decisive. She always does the right thing. She is THE ONLY human that knows how to interact with Murderbot in a way that forces him to acknowledge the quality of her thought processes and he is THE ONE human character that Murderbot actually respects.Now I’m going to paint outside the lines a bit and I have no doubt that some of you are just going to think that what I’m about to say is a bit silly. I just finished the book and the following thoughts are my first and strongest impressions – things that can often prove to be unreliable when you step back and reconsider after a day of two. Alternatively, many of you might just say duh – why did it take you so long to figure this out. Either way, if so, please comment and tell me. I’d welcome someone else’s perspective.Here’s what I think. The minute I finished this book – after the final chapter – which consisted of two conversations – one with Mensah’s daughter and one with Mensah herself – this odd thought popped into my head. Wells is actually writing about a teenager. Murderbot is a smart, capable, totally frustrating, thoroughly conflicted teenager.He’s doing all the cliche things that we all too often equate with teenage behavior. He’s rebelling. He’s running away from home. He’s trying to figure out his place in the world. He’s pre-occupied with his media. He argues. He thinks all humans / adults are stupid. He always thinks he’s right. He doesn’t do what he’s told to do. Most importantly, he’s growing up and defining himself in a very complicated world.I loved that final conversation with Mensah’s daughter. She handled Murderbot better than almost any other adult he met in any of the 4 novellas and Murderbot responded to her in a pretty open and honest way – almost like he was dealing with a peer. That one conversation was one of the most enjoyable moments in the 4 books for me – it was really endearing – for lack of a better word – it was just too cute.Mensah is unique in the book. She is the one human character to which Murderbot is willing to defer. She’s the one character Murderbot respects enough to confer with – to ask for and take advice from – his one human truly ADULT presence. Mensah is Mom.During the final combat sequence, in a life and death situation, Murderbot steps back from what he’s doing to actually ask for Mensah’s opinion regarding the motives of their attackers. At the point when Murderbot had decided to try and capture the Bond Company gunship and was about to act – Mensah suspected what he was about to do without being told – she stopped him cold with one word a – a simple no – and then engaged him in the way a concerned and very capable parent would their own child – making him understand what was driving his behavior and forcing him to stand down – making him realize that there was a more rational, less confrontational way to achieve his objective. She provided the adult perspective. It was classic parenting.I know Wells is married but I don’t know for sure that she has children. If so, I would bet my bottom dollar that she was drawing on her parenting experience as she wrote this book. I’ve been processing all of this, reviewing all of this, through the lens of a serious and dedicated science fiction fan and – while I’ve always been really positive overall – there were parts of the story that I quibbled with a bit – quibbles that I’ve written into my first three reviews.With this new perspective, the story transforms a bit. Now that I’m reading it more as a family drama and a mother / son story, I fell in love with the books in a different and totally unconditional way. I enjoyed all of these books but I enjoyed this 4th and final installment the most – by far. As a parent myself – one that’s done the work of helping my son make the transition from boy to teenager to young adult, I now think I know why! 🙂If you haven’t read these books, please do so. They’re just flat out wonderful!!

Murderbot diaries is one book separated into 4 short stories. Each one takes about 2 hours to read. The silly price is a great shame because the book is excellent. Martha Wells could draw in a huge fanbase if she sold this as one book or simply priced it as 4 short stories. Instead, people will feel bad about the books; nobody likes to be ripped off. This would have been a 5 star review, but I feel I must reduce it to 3 stars because of the pricing.The central character is highly original and robots have never been characterised so well since Iain Banks. He is a human/robot construct who should be under control from his programming but has managed to hack the program to have some free will in his decisions. He goes on to have a different adventure in each of the 4 stories and save people from the evil, stop-at-nothing-for-profit, mega-corporation, making some decent friends with people/bots that he meets on the way. If you like hard SF with realistically-drawn future technology then you will like this.Wait until the price goes down before buying and read “Sea of Rust” or “Windup Girl” or any of Bank's Culture Series books (such as “Player of Games” or “Excession”) in the meantime. These are all excellent full-size books which contain well-characterised drones/robots and they are all sold at a reasonable price.

It’s a decent story but it’s a short story priced as if it was a full length novel. Having been sucked in I’ve bought all 4 as I hate leaving a good story - and it is a good story, and well written - unfinished.That said I’d advise avoiding this until the price of the four books is the same as the average length novel they will then represent. I will certainly not be buying any more Martha Wells at this kind of price (just under £6 each) in future. And that includes further outings, if any, for the murderbot.Your mileage may vary of course, but I’m not encouraging this kind of pricing with my money.

Martha Wells has created a wonderful character in 'Murderbot' and the books are excellent to read. Well written, engaging characterisation and flowing story with enough action to keep the pace up.All well and good but the truth is that these are not really books. The entire series could be folded into one decent sized book that would justify the price. Instead what you really pay for is a few chapters of that big book for a premium price.The wonder of it is that I have continued to do so. I guess Martha Wells is a great author in the genre.However, this is the last time I do it. Whilst I love the 'books' the price is ridiculous for what amounts to little more than a novella. The story is a five star one but the excessive costs push it to one star. So three stars is a reasonable weighting for this overall I feel.

Murderbot is back in their last (for now) adventure and damn, is it a good one. In this novella Murderbot heads home to help rescue Dr. Mensah, their companion and friend from book one. On the way they run up against their old enemy GreyCris Corporation and all sorts of fun and games ensue.This is the fourth in Martha Wells' series and a more than satisfying ending to the story started in All Systems Red. The main character (the aforementioned Murderbot) has grown and developed so much since that first book and just keeps getting better. They have learned how to mimic human mannerisms, how to blend in with crowds without wanting to kill everyone and, more importantly, how to care about humans. They even have to deal with those pesky emotional responses every now and then, which isn't exactly what Murderbot wants but for some reason they can't make them stop.If you haven't read any of the Murderbot Diaries yet I'd strongly recommend you start with book one. This is character driven sci-fi at its best and includes some ridiculously well-written action sequences. I could easily see this getting turned into a TV series at some point (fingers crossed), and I can't wait for the novel that's due to drop next year.

Murderbot finally has the evidence that will take down GrayCris Corp. But Dr Mensah is being held hostage by the Corporation. Can Murderbot deliver the evidence and save Dr Mensah? And why does Murderbot even want to do this?This final novella in the Murderbot series zips smartly along like all the others, and ties back neatly with the characters from the first instalment. Murderbot continues to be snarky, and continues to run rings around tech defences. This being the last instalment, there are several times where it is not at all clear how things are going to pan out. There is a satisfactory conclusion, but I do want to see more Murderbot tales, and maybe in meatier novel for next?