If there’s one thing that ROGUE PROTOCOL made clear to me, it’s that THE MURDERBOT DIARIES quartet is truly a study of Murderbot’s evolution as a character, as it wrestles with the question of what it wants in the world, and what it wants in relation to humans. To do so, it has to stowaway on an expedition of humans hoping to recover the platform, and befriend Miki, a robot who adores its human owners and sees them as its friends.

Mensah is still in a legal battle with Gre圜ris, the company that tried to kill her and her team, Murderbot sets out to an abandoned Gre圜ris terraforming platform in the hopes of collecting damning information. Mensah’s attempts to “free”` Murderbot by putting it under her guardianship, Murderbot still feels protective of the woman who didn’t run screaming when she learned of its true nature. While choosing its next destination, Murderbot picks up an update about the last client it had before it went rogue, Dr. Murderbot is trying to put some distance between it and its latest escapades, which left a few (justifiably) dead bodies scattered about a space station. ROGUE PROTOCOL picks up a few days after the events of ARTIFICIAL CONDITION. This voice adds flavor to an otherwise basic plot that was still highly entertaining to read. The strength of these books comes from the voice Martha Wells has given to Murderbot as it navigates the strange space of being a robotic construct with very human instincts. It took about two pages to reassure myself that Murderbot was here once again to be annoyed by humans and their very stupid ways.

Rogue protocol