Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Murderbot Has a Fraught Reunion Murderbot is on its way to reunite with Dr. Mensah so as to hand its benefactor some data clips to help her nail the villainous corporation GrayCris when it discovers that GrayCris has accused Dr. Mensah of corporate espionage (a classic case of obfuscating projection because GrayCris’ motto is We Kill You and Take Your Stuff while Dr. Mensah is the “president” of a mild, quasi-utopic culture called Preservation) and then apparently kidnapped her to hold her for ransom and or to lure Murderbot into a trap. What’s Murderbot to do? Something risky like the stupid humans it always finds itself dealing with? Murderbot—a uniquely autonomous construct organic-mechanical security unit who doesn’t need to eat, drink, or sleep, can turn its pain receptors up or down and interface instantly with ships, drones, bots, and the like, and has guns that can shoot out of its arms, but who has been modified to look more human, including the ability to grow its hair, and who has learned much about human behavior by watching thousands of hours of dramas—is still uneasy around humans and has a whole knot of confused emotions attached to the prospect of meeting Dr. Mensah again, because “I didn't know what Mensah was to me.” Because my favorite parts of Martha Wells’ Murderbot stories are the conversations between her autonomous (rogue!) security unit and its various organic and inorganic interlocutors, this fourth novella in the series, Exit Strategy (2018), starts slowly, because for a long time Murderbot is on its own trying to figure out what’s going on with Dr. Mensah and GrayCris, checking news feeds, thinking, and planning. Luckily, the extended climax scene, starting with “Operation Not Actually a Completely Terrible Plan” and taking place on a corporate hub (hotels, transportation tubes, space port, security forces, etc.) with many people doing their normal business while a select number of hostiles try to ratfuck “team Preservation” is vivid, suspenseful, unpredictable, scary, and exciting. Wells has made us really care about Murderbot and its (fragile) human friends and really loathe GrayCris and to a lesser extent the Bond Company who originally owned Murderbot (“The Company is like an evil vending machine, you put money in, and it does what you want unless someone else puts in more money and tells it to stop”). And the resolution is satisfying. Throughout, there are, as usual, cool lines aplenty, like: “How humans decide what to do with their arms on a second-by-second basis I have no idea.” “I entertained myself by infiltrating the hotel security system while I waited.” “We humans tend to think that because a bot or construct looks human its ultimate goal is to become human.” “That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.” “I hate having emotions about real humans.” “I made the ultimate sacrifice: ‘You can hug me if you want to.’” And Kevin R. Free reads the novella audiobook perfectly. I’ve really enjoyed binging on Murderbot novellas (like Murderbot watching umpteen episodes of Sanctuary Moon!), but I’ll take a wee break before diving in again. (And I do think that the first four novellas at least could be combined into a single novel, as they form a kind of self-contained story arc.) View all my reviews
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Jefferson Peters
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