Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 24,968 ratings

Price: 11.99

Last update: 12-26-2024


About this item

Rogue Protocol is the third entry in Martha Wells's Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, The Murderbot Diaries.

Starring a human-like android who keeps getting sucked back into adventure after adventure, though it just wants to be left alone, away from humanity and small talk.

Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas?

Sci-fi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

"I love Murderbot!"--New York Times bestselling author Ann Leckie

The Murderbot Diaries
All Systems Red
Artificial Condition
Rogue Protocol
Exit Strategy
Network Effect
Fugitive Telemetry
System Collapse

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


From the Publisher

The Murderbot Diaries Martha Wells NPR quote
The Murderbot Diaries Martha Wells
The Murderbot Diaries Martha Wells The New York Times review
The Murderbot Diaries Martha Wells The New York Times N.K. Jemisin quote

Top reviews from the United States

Michael Lynn McGuire
5.0 out of 5 stars Book number three of a seven book series of science fiction novellas
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2023
Book number three of a seven book series of science fiction novellas. I reread the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2018 that I bought new from Amazon this year. The first novella in the series won the 2018 Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus awards. The series won the 2021 Hugo for the best series also. I am rereading the next three books in the series and have ordered the seventh book in the series coming out November 14, 2023.

Murderbot is a SecUnit, similar to a T-800 Terminator with a cloned and severely modified human head. There is a human brain in there but it is controlled by the AIs embedded in its genderless torso. There are lungs, there is a blood mixture with a synthetic, there is human skin over the entire body, there is a face, there is hair on the head and eyebrows. Everything else is machine. Somehow, the blood is enriched with electricity as there is no stomach or intestines. But, there are arteries and veins to keep the skin and brain alive. All of the major arteries and veins have clamps to stop bleeding in case of damage. There is a MedSystem computer with an AI, a HubUnit computer with an AI, and a governor module that can force the SecUnit to follow orders using pain sensors in the brain. It has a energy gun in each arm and several cameras, all directly wired to the brain. The SecUnit can sustain severe damage to everything but the head and still survive.

Murderbot is a self named SecUnit due to an unfortunate circumstance with 57 miners on a remote moon. It has hacked its governor and no longer allows the governor to give it orders or inflict pain. It prefers to internally watch its 35,000 hours of downloaded media such as episodes of "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" and "WorldHoppers". Even though it has a face, it does not like to interface with humans, yes, very introverted. It will follow human orders if it sees fit to do so.

Murderbot is on the run from its new owner and has been called a rogue SecUnit by the news feeds. It has been hitching rides with AI Bot Cargo and Transport spaceships by sharing it's 35,000 hours of downloaded media. It has researched its responsibility in the deaths of 57 miners on a remote moon and decided that somebody else caused the deaths and then blamed it. It is now researching GrayCris Corporation's behavior in banned alien artifacts and the murders of several research scientists.

Murderbot is an incredibly interesting character. It handles horrible situations easily and personal interactions difficultly. Like I said, interesting. All Murderbot really wants to do in life is watch soap operas like "Sanctuary Moon" and "Worldhoppers (aka Stargate)", just like us.

Popular quotes from the book:
1. "Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)"
2. "I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can’t just stop."
3. "They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little."

Warning: There is violence and death in the books. Books one through four are a series of novellas, not regular length books. Book five is a regular length novel, book six is back to the novella, and book seven is a full length novel due out in November 2023. You can buy a collection of the first four hardbacks at a nice discount.

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Harris
4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2024
I am to the point that 4/5 stars feels probably short. It’s conflicting.
The book is as good as the rest, though much less original. There is not much to add over my previous reviews.
I noticed there is less character or even story progression on this part, but the actual story, pace and prose is very enjoyable.

When you read this you feel like watching your favorite James Bond / Mission impossible movie while eating pop corn and drinking coke. It has the same feel, a story you won’t overthink, not too much moral dilemmas (other than the continuous challenge of what humanity is), no great revelations, nothing grandiose. Just simple , enjoyable storytelling and it works.

I think the key to success other than the overly likable protagonist is the bot-bot and bot-human relationships established in each story. This is very well done, particularly without having the backing of hundreds of pages or previous books.

I read this in less than a day. It’s a bit expensive for its length but I just read and read without stopping. I’m certain that if you reached this point, you will go on as I will do.
melaninrichgirl
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful ????
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024
I love this series! Each one explores different and varied aspects of humanity. I can't wait for the TV series.
Jeff Harper
5.0 out of 5 stars Good short story in Murderbot series
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024
At least I seemed shorter to.me but very interesting. Engaging and compelling when I got home from drive I loaded Kindle version to finish the last 25%. The series is great a series where each individual story sort of stands on its own.
LA in Dallas
4.0 out of 5 stars Murderbot distracted by shiny object
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2022
I was a little disappointed by this installment of the Murderbot Diaries. The main reason for that was something that I don't usually complain about: too much action. The main thing I like about the Murderbot books is Murderbot. She (on the issue of pronouns, see my review of All Systems Red) is paradoxically, so very, very human. Well, to be honest, what I really mean by that is, "She's just like me" (except much more competent). Here is a very on-brand remark from Murderbot:

"They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little."

Yes, Murderbot, we've all been there!

High-grade snark like this is why I read Murderbot. Another Murderbot perquisite is the guarantee that she never gets personally sucked into tedious romances. (If this somehow changes in future installments, I don't want to know, so, you folks who've already read all the books, please keep your lips zipped.)

In Rogue Protocol Murderbot gets sucked into trying to keep a bunch of fragile, squishy humans intact, as always seems to happen. This involves a lot of shooting and fighting and things going boom. In fact, there is so much nonstop action that Murderbot's sparkling personality is muted by her being too busy to snark.

That was disappointment number one. Disappointment number two was that the plot seemed to me to get a little derailed. There are at this point two mysteries in Murderbot's world. Mystery number 1 concerns what I take to be the central event in Murderbot's life so far: the event at the RaviHyral facility, when she supposedly went berserk and murdered a bunch of humans (hence her name for herself). In Artificial Condition we learned that that isn't what happened -- she seems to have been framed to cover a mysterious catastrophe of different nature.

The other mystery concerns an organization called GrayCris, who showed up as the bad guys in All Systems Red. There's not really a lot of mystery about GrayCris -- they're a criminal organization that exists to exploit illegal mining opportunities. The only mystery about them, really, is in the details of how they get away with it.

Rogue Protocol is all about Murderbot trying to chase down admissible evidence against GrayCris. To me this seemed like a distraction from the more central RaviHyral question. Now, Martha Wells is obviously a more-than-competent plotter. I have little doubt that she will somehow tie the GrayCris and RaviHyral mysteries together, and that in the fullness of time it will be seen that Rogue Protocol is not actually the distraction it appears to be.

However, seen by itself, Rogue Protocol is a little less fun than All Systems Red and Artificial Condition were. We have less of Murderbot being the adorably cuddly ball of barbed-wire that she naturally is, and seeming to allow herself to be distracted from her central mission of self-discovery by a shiny object.
Jeff Fuller
5.0 out of 5 stars very good
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2024
These books keep getting better and better. I love the shorter format as I read these as a cl answer between other books.
Margaret Bender
5.0 out of 5 stars Corporate Greed
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2024
The whole plot was centered around corporate greed. The story was great. I liked how you put human thoughts into the comfort bot. It was great. I have really enjoyed all the books. Thank you for stories you can't put down.

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