“Fugitive Telemetry” by Martha Wells

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Rating: 4/5 Stars

A fun story, where Murderbot gets to play a detective to solve a murder mystery on Preservation Station. The investigation would involve determining if the murder was part of an attempt on its client’s life by the company, GrayCris, that Murderbot and its client royally screwed in the previous Murderbot stories.

Also involved in the investigation would be Station Security, who are reluctant to work with a rogue SecUnit (aka Murderbot) who they think would murder them all in an instant (and they wouldn’t be wrong). To allay their fears, Murderbot had earlier promise not to hack their security system, which limits what kinds of data Murderbot can access, which makes it very unhappy (it needs all the info to make sure the case wasn’t part of a GrayCris plot).

Eventually, Murderbot works it all out and determines not just why the murder occurred, but also the method and who did it. And now it and Station Security have a better working relationship.

Written from Murderbot’s point of view, the story features a lot of internal monologues and Murderbot’s opinions about humans on the station (mostly sarcastic and funny), which adds a lot of laughs to the situation. Of course, there are moments of sheer violence but Murderbot keeps the enemy body count low compared to previous stories.

Now on to more Murderbot adventures!

Book read from 2021/05/12 to 2021/05/15