6 ms·

I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it. Still not every book is for every person, it

I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it. Still not every book is for every person, it didn't connect with me but it very obviously has its fans.

ghaff 2y ago
I felt similarly. Read what I think was the first book. Enjoyed it well enough. But also didn't feel a burning need to snag further books.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I enjoyed the novella but also didn't feel like it did anything particularly new or interesting. I think a lot of people just relate to a snarky unwilling protagonist who would rather be watching TV.
- georgeecollins 2y ago
  >> a lot of people just relate to a snarky unwilling protagonist who would rather be watching TV. You put that beautifully! That is what I enjoyed about it.
- SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
  I think that is a new and interesting protagonist tbh. So many are heros or have to develop into heroism. It’s refreshing to just have someone who explicitly doesn’t save the world or similar stakes.
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    Maybe the pop culture obsession is new, but the snarky, reluctant protagonist is something I have seen enough to be kind of tired of. Off the top of my head, Murderbot also reminds me of the protagonist of Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City which I recently read. If you enjoyed Murderbot, take that as a recommendation, although it is less sci-fi and more historical fiction.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
      Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City has a protagonist who is reluctant but is forced to face huge stakes, namely the fall of a city at war. Murderbot is interesting for more than its reluctance: the stakes are distinctly different and far more about introspection and self actualization.
    - Slippery_John 2y ago
      Orhan is quite different though - he's a braggart unreliably narrating his own story after most of the events have transpired. You can't believe his reluctance, it's a show he's putting on to make himself look better. The entire story feels like it too, credit to the author. Murderbot is not that. What you see of them is as genuine as their perspective can be. Murderbot may be snarky, but it doesn't have the same braggadocious air, and I do think that changes the character and story significantly. And if you're a similar kind of neuro-atypical then it can be a refreshing bit of heroic representation. I will give Sixteen Ways some credit though - at least it ended. I don't particularly like the ending, but it is one. Murderbot falls off hard by the time the series gets to full length novels.
  - layer8 2y ago
    While I liked it for what it is, the reluctant antihero isn’t exactly a new concept, other than possibly in the present aspect of being a semi-autistic robot/AI.
- jandrese 2y ago
  My thought when I was reading it was that Murderbot is a stand in for people on the autism spectrum. This is an unusual viewpoint in literature and probably resonated with a lot of people in a similar situation. I personally liked the stories and will read the next installment when it comes out, but found myself gravitating more towards ART than Murderbot. If I had any quibbles it would be how the living people are underdeveloped and sometimes no better than background furniture. This naturally arises from the viewpoint of the protagonist, but can be somewhat annoying to the reader.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    It seems to have a lot of resonance with trans people too. I'm autistic but there's enough overlap between the two groups that I've noticed how people in both communities react to the series.
    - the_af 2y ago
      One thing I found cool about Murderbot is that there's no implication "it" is of any particular gender. I'm a man, so I went in with my prejudices and automatically assumed Murderbot is a "he". When reading a review that considered it a "she", I re-read most of it and there's no single indication of its gender, if Murderbot even assumes one. I found that interesting, kind of like that trick Ursula K. Le Guin pulled when she didn't tell her readers Ged from Earthsea was dark skinned.
      - jandrese 2y ago
        I read murderbot as androgynous. I’m pretty sure they even mention how there are no reproductive organs because why would a SecUnit have that? There is even a story where Murderbot befriends a sexbot and feels glad not to have to deal with that sort of complicated hardware. There are parts of the story where Murderbot passes as either a man or a woman so I figure the body shape must be fairly neutral.
      - shepherdjerred 2y ago
        I’m pretty sure Murderbot explicitly doesn’t have a gender
- dpkirchner 2y ago
  I enjoyed that I could relate to the protagonist's anxiety (in addition to what you said about watching TV).
georgeecollins 2y ago
It's the kind of book(s) that are better if they sneak up on you. The whole point is that murderbot wants to be left alone (to watch soap operas!) but keeps having to wrestle with being a person in often particularly difficult and confusing circumstances. The delight is that it can be wry and insightful. If someone tells you it is going to have big messages I could see how it would be disappointing.
dartharva 2y ago
I listened to the GraphicAudio adaptation of the series and couldn't keep it down. It's genuinely great! The Murderbot series is specifically the kind of literature that's meant for serialized A/V adaptation in my opinion; but just as a novel of course it won't compete with the kinds of Gibson, Stephenson, Egan or even Weir.
imzadi 2y ago
A lot of the people I see recommending it, including myself, listened to the audiobook. I think Kevin R Free really brings it alive.
IshKebab 2y ago
Same. It was ok. Kind of ended before it got going. Definitely not good enough to make me want to read more.
mananaysiempre 2y ago
Murderbot is indeed somewhere between OK and good—personally I’m leaning towards good, but I wouldn’t compare it to a masterclass in short-form writing (like anything by Sheckley) or a longer piece you could debate for hours afterwards (like A Memory Called Empire, to give a recent example). It doesn’t try to be mind-numbingly flashy, it doesn’t proselytize, it just brings you to alien vistas to meditate on the nature of universal human experience. That is to say, it belongs to a good, storied strain of SF that’s quite rare amongst its modern specimens. I’d rave about that.
- finnh 2y ago
  A Memory Called Empire was so good! Seems like nobody has heard of it.
  - titanomachy 2y ago
    It won the Hugo and was shortlisted for the Nebula, so at least some people have heard of it. Those are the two most famous sci-fi awards. Sometimes I look at their shortlists for ideas on what to read next.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      While I definitely don't agree with the 'sad puppies' movement, I do think that the Hugo has declined in quality recently (especially in terms of their nom slate) for somewhat similar reasons to what they identified
      - titanomachy 2y ago
        I kind of agree. I look at the shortlist for ideas but make my own decision about whether the book sounds interesting to me.
  - metaphor 2y ago
    Teixcalaan earned two Hugos for Weller in short order; of course people have heard of it. However, it shouldn't be surprising that it's little known to the type of crowd that Murderbot Diaries is likely to appeal to...perhaps even more so when audiobook is the preferred consumption format for such short novellas as many commenters here have expressed.
jemmyw 2y ago
I agree, it was OK. I was hoping, based on the reviews and hype, that the books would be much more witty. They turned out to be pretty humourless.
vundercind 2y ago
I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be pretty damn mediocre. That's been the outcome often enough that I just have to ignore those kinds of comments, no matter how frequently-encountered and how unanswered by credible-seeming naysayers they go—those aspects, maddeningly, don't seem to correlate with them being more likely to be good advice on what to read next. IDK what the deal is, though I suspect it's actually multiple forms of difference in judgement of fiction and expectations for how one frames a recommendation, which have different causes but the same outcome. Like, I basically need a top-ten in-genre books and a top-ten (dealer's choice) works outside that genre in any medium from someone recommending a book, to even begin to judge if what I'm going to find on the other side of the recommendation is probably going to at least be fairly good. A bare recommendation, no matter how glowing, carries no signal. Let me know what else you think is good, and I can start to get an idea of whether we're in alignment, because otherwise there's a decent chance we very much are not.
- m463 2y ago
  I agree. When I first used to go to bookstores, the "highly recommended!" books tended to be star wars type books. Even author recommendations are hit or miss. I loved well's murderbot series. I tried her other books (Raksura) but it wasn't as fun. I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. Gaiman's short story "How to talk to girls at parties" was fun though. https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties_(Text) https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_... I liked Neal Stephenson's early books like snowcrash or the diamond age, but the baroque cycle lost my trust.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. The version that's sold today is the "author's preferred text" which is not the version that was praised and won awards etc.. I think that's pretty dishonest marketing, and wish they'd sell the original edition, which is like 200 pages shorter.
layer8 2y ago
I liked it and read the first couple of installments, but it’s a bit of a one trick pony.
whimsicalism 2y ago
it's a book pretty popular among people who like tv/are not the most avid readers. i found it good, but definitely pretty pulpy and also clearly relying on the trope of 'minimal protag personality so the reader can slot themselves in'
m463 2y ago
I like science fiction/fantasy of all kinds, but some of it has action without much character development. This book had interesting character development, and I especially enjoyed the read-between-the-lines behavior of others viewed through an aspergers frame of mind. Sort of awkward but decent.

ghaff 2y ago

I felt similarly. Read what I think was the first book. Enjoyed it well enough. But also didn't feel a burning need to snag further books.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I enjoyed the novella but also didn't feel like it did anything particularly new or interesting. I think a lot of people just relate to a snarky unwilling protagonist who would rather be watching TV.

georgeecollins 2y ago
>> a lot of people just relate to a snarky unwilling protagonist who would rather be watching TV. You put that beautifully! That is what I enjoyed about it.
SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
I think that is a new and interesting protagonist tbh. So many are heros or have to develop into heroism. It’s refreshing to just have someone who explicitly doesn’t save the world or similar stakes.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Maybe the pop culture obsession is new, but the snarky, reluctant protagonist is something I have seen enough to be kind of tired of. Off the top of my head, Murderbot also reminds me of the protagonist of Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City which I recently read. If you enjoyed Murderbot, take that as a recommendation, although it is less sci-fi and more historical fiction.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 2y ago
    Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City has a protagonist who is reluctant but is forced to face huge stakes, namely the fall of a city at war. Murderbot is interesting for more than its reluctance: the stakes are distinctly different and far more about introspection and self actualization.
  - Slippery_John 2y ago
    Orhan is quite different though - he's a braggart unreliably narrating his own story after most of the events have transpired. You can't believe his reluctance, it's a show he's putting on to make himself look better. The entire story feels like it too, credit to the author. Murderbot is not that. What you see of them is as genuine as their perspective can be. Murderbot may be snarky, but it doesn't have the same braggadocious air, and I do think that changes the character and story significantly. And if you're a similar kind of neuro-atypical then it can be a refreshing bit of heroic representation. I will give Sixteen Ways some credit though - at least it ended. I don't particularly like the ending, but it is one. Murderbot falls off hard by the time the series gets to full length novels.
- layer8 2y ago
  While I liked it for what it is, the reluctant antihero isn’t exactly a new concept, other than possibly in the present aspect of being a semi-autistic robot/AI.
jandrese 2y ago
My thought when I was reading it was that Murderbot is a stand in for people on the autism spectrum. This is an unusual viewpoint in literature and probably resonated with a lot of people in a similar situation. I personally liked the stories and will read the next installment when it comes out, but found myself gravitating more towards ART than Murderbot. If I had any quibbles it would be how the living people are underdeveloped and sometimes no better than background furniture. This naturally arises from the viewpoint of the protagonist, but can be somewhat annoying to the reader.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  It seems to have a lot of resonance with trans people too. I'm autistic but there's enough overlap between the two groups that I've noticed how people in both communities react to the series.
  - the_af 2y ago
    One thing I found cool about Murderbot is that there's no implication "it" is of any particular gender. I'm a man, so I went in with my prejudices and automatically assumed Murderbot is a "he". When reading a review that considered it a "she", I re-read most of it and there's no single indication of its gender, if Murderbot even assumes one. I found that interesting, kind of like that trick Ursula K. Le Guin pulled when she didn't tell her readers Ged from Earthsea was dark skinned.
    - jandrese 2y ago
      I read murderbot as androgynous. I’m pretty sure they even mention how there are no reproductive organs because why would a SecUnit have that? There is even a story where Murderbot befriends a sexbot and feels glad not to have to deal with that sort of complicated hardware. There are parts of the story where Murderbot passes as either a man or a woman so I figure the body shape must be fairly neutral.
    - shepherdjerred 2y ago
      I’m pretty sure Murderbot explicitly doesn’t have a gender
dpkirchner 2y ago
I enjoyed that I could relate to the protagonist's anxiety (in addition to what you said about watching TV).

georgeecollins 2y ago

It's the kind of book(s) that are better if they sneak up on you. The whole point is that murderbot wants to be left alone (to watch soap operas!) but keeps having to wrestle with being a person in often particularly difficult and confusing circumstances. The delight is that it can be wry and insightful. If someone tells you it is going to have big messages I could see how it would be disappointing.

dartharva 2y ago

I listened to the GraphicAudio adaptation of the series and couldn't keep it down. It's genuinely great! The Murderbot series is specifically the kind of literature that's meant for serialized A/V adaptation in my opinion; but just as a novel of course it won't compete with the kinds of Gibson, Stephenson, Egan or even Weir.

imzadi 2y ago

A lot of the people I see recommending it, including myself, listened to the audiobook. I think Kevin R Free really brings it alive.

IshKebab 2y ago

Same. It was ok. Kind of ended before it got going. Definitely not good enough to make me want to read more.

mananaysiempre 2y ago

Murderbot is indeed somewhere between OK and good—personally I’m leaning towards good, but I wouldn’t compare it to a masterclass in short-form writing (like anything by Sheckley) or a longer piece you could debate for hours afterwards (like A Memory Called Empire, to give a recent example). It doesn’t try to be mind-numbingly flashy, it doesn’t proselytize, it just brings you to alien vistas to meditate on the nature of universal human experience. That is to say, it belongs to a good, storied strain of SF that’s quite rare amongst its modern specimens. I’d rave about that.

finnh 2y ago
A Memory Called Empire was so good! Seems like nobody has heard of it.
- titanomachy 2y ago
  It won the Hugo and was shortlisted for the Nebula, so at least some people have heard of it. Those are the two most famous sci-fi awards. Sometimes I look at their shortlists for ideas on what to read next.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    While I definitely don't agree with the 'sad puppies' movement, I do think that the Hugo has declined in quality recently (especially in terms of their nom slate) for somewhat similar reasons to what they identified
    - titanomachy 2y ago
      I kind of agree. I look at the shortlist for ideas but make my own decision about whether the book sounds interesting to me.
- metaphor 2y ago
  Teixcalaan earned two Hugos for Weller in short order; of course people have heard of it. However, it shouldn't be surprising that it's little known to the type of crowd that Murderbot Diaries is likely to appeal to...perhaps even more so when audiobook is the preferred consumption format for such short novellas as many commenters here have expressed.

jemmyw 2y ago

I agree, it was OK. I was hoping, based on the reviews and hype, that the books would be much more witty. They turned out to be pretty humourless.

vundercind 2y ago

I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be pretty damn mediocre. That's been the outcome often enough that I just have to ignore those kinds of comments, no matter how frequently-encountered and how unanswered by credible-seeming naysayers they go—those aspects, maddeningly, don't seem to correlate with them being more likely to be good advice on what to read next. IDK what the deal is, though I suspect it's actually multiple forms of difference in judgement of fiction and expectations for how one frames a recommendation, which have different causes but the same outcome. Like, I basically need a top-ten in-genre books and a top-ten (dealer's choice) works outside that genre in any medium from someone recommending a book, to even begin to judge if what I'm going to find on the other side of the recommendation is probably going to at least be fairly good. A bare recommendation, no matter how glowing, carries no signal. Let me know what else you think is good, and I can start to get an idea of whether we're in alignment, because otherwise there's a decent chance we very much are not.

m463 2y ago
I agree. When I first used to go to bookstores, the "highly recommended!" books tended to be star wars type books. Even author recommendations are hit or miss. I loved well's murderbot series. I tried her other books (Raksura) but it wasn't as fun. I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. Gaiman's short story "How to talk to girls at parties" was fun though. https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties_(Text) https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_... I liked Neal Stephenson's early books like snowcrash or the diamond age, but the baroque cycle lost my trust.
- lmm 2y ago
  > I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. The version that's sold today is the "author's preferred text" which is not the version that was praised and won awards etc.. I think that's pretty dishonest marketing, and wish they'd sell the original edition, which is like 200 pages shorter.

layer8 2y ago

I liked it and read the first couple of installments, but it’s a bit of a one trick pony.

whimsicalism 2y ago

it's a book pretty popular among people who like tv/are not the most avid readers. i found it good, but definitely pretty pulpy and also clearly relying on the trope of 'minimal protag personality so the reader can slot themselves in'

m463 2y ago

I like science fiction/fantasy of all kinds, but some of it has action without much character development. This book had interesting character development, and I especially enjoyed the read-between-the-lines behavior of others viewed through an aspergers frame of mind. Sort of awkward but decent.