Murderbot (in Both Configurations)

How I Learned to Fall in Love with a Killer Robot with Anxiety Issues

Like some people, I decided to check out AppleTV’s Murderbot series. Based on a book series which is actually a series of novellas called The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, the series follows the titular Murderbot, a ‘SecUnit’ or Security Unit construct, that is somewhere between a robot and a cyborg piloted by an artificial intelligence. This particularl SecUnit has hacked it’s governor module, allowing it it’s own personal freedom to do whatever it wants - typically, this would be the start of a story of a machine going rogue and killing its creators, but the thing with Murderbot (who names itself that) is that it would rather spend its time watching hours upon hours of entertainment shows, in particular cheesy, high camp melodrama such as The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, than go on a killing spree. Because as much as it likes fictional humans and their feelings, it finds actual humans and their feelings, relationships and (ugh) intimacy to be deeply distressing.

So much so comedy, right? And certainly the TV adaptation does lean into that angle a fair bit. And I found it thoroughly entertaining as a result, so after just two episodes I decided to check out the books. And I’m glad I did because not only are they also thoroughly entertaining, they are also very, very different - and yet strangely the same.

Now, note that the TV show is still airing, and is not finished, and at time of writing has only aired seven episodes total. Moreoever, so far, I have only read the first two novellas, All Systems Red and Artificial Condition. But even with those fairly small samplings, it’s clear to see that the two iterations of the Murderbot story are quite different, while still being recognisably the same.

I’ll start off by talking about why I love the concept of Murderbot and why I love the TV show and the books, before going into their core differences after the paywall jump. Note: that will contain signifcant spoilers, though I’ll try to hold back as much as possible, so if you want to check either the books or show out, you may want to go do that before coming back to read my thoughts past the paywall jump.

What both do incredibly well is handle the main character of Murderbot in such a way that, at least to me, it reads like a pretty accurate neurodivergent person. Murderbot’s uncomfortableness with discussing how it feels, or with the feelings of others, though it absolutely understands them, felt very real to me, and I think it’s why the character has proven so enduring and popular amongst readers of sci-fi and fantasy.

Moreover, the action is fairly well executed, especially in the TV show, but it is surprisingly sparing on it. It would have been easy to just make it an action show, but instead, they lean into the comedy and relatability aspect a lot more (to varying level of effect).

And while the show is definitely making changes to the narrative of the books which are clearly to draw out the story without completely derailing it, it conversely does suffer from a problem of each episode feeling a little short. Each episode is about 30 minutes long, and honestly, they could do with being an hour. Each episode kind of just feels like it’s getting into the meat of things when it comes to an end, which is one of the few frustrations I have with it.

That being said, both the books and show are thoroughly entertaining, and I highly recommend both.