I got pretty sick a while back. I was miserable, bedridden, suffering from the flu. When I couldn’t sleep anymore but couldn’t stand just staring at the wall, I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.
I devoured them. They helped me ignore all those fun flu symptoms by tickling my brain.
Being a construct, a SecUnit (security unit) specifically, Murderbot straddles an interesting line as it has inorganic and organic parts. It can process like a computer, and yet it has emotions like a human–which it often finds a nuisance.
Same, Murderbot. Same.
That’s part of what makes these diaries so interesting, though. SecUnits are treated as property, assigned to planetary exploration teams, brains fried if they stray too far or disobey, but should they be? How sentient does something have to be to have rights equal to a human?
These questions and more come up in this fun, action-packed sci-fi, and I highly recommend it.
Also Murderbot and its found family are adorable. Found family gets me every time.
