The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 3 by Martha Wells (book review)

This is the third volume of ‘The Murderbot Diaries’ by Martha Wells that publishes everything in the series except the longer novel and short stories. The first is the novella ‘Fugitive Telemetry’ which takes place after ‘Exit Strategy’ in the previous volume and before the longer novel, ‘Network Effect’. The second story is a short novel, ‘System Collapse’, which takes place after said novel.

‘Fugitive Telemetry’ starts off in a traditional murder mystery paradigm of finding a dead body who was clearly killed elsewhere through lack of sufficient blood. Furthermore, the dead man has no form of identification on him or in the Preservation Station’s official computer systems. Well, Murderbot does like watching the entertainment channels, so why shouldn’t he help with a set-piece murder investigation?

Naturally, the issue for Murderbot – a SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module so that it can’t be controlled by humans – and his guardian Dr Mensah is whether their arch-enemy GrayCris corporation is behind this. She forces the lead investigator, Senior Officer Indah, to albeit reluctantly accept Murderbot’s help. Murderbot does not want to assist either, but is persuaded by the fact it is an opportunity for him to improve his relationship with the Preservation Alliance, which in turn might lead to him being hired as consultant.

There is one condition on him helping: he does not access the Station’s security systems in any way or form. So Murderbot has to investigate the old-fashioned way. He notes that the dead man does not have a travel bag with him, very unusual for a visitor. The first stop was transient housing block. A nice friendly bot called Tellus restocking items from a floating cart is a good place to start getting information. Turns out Tellus can identify any room that might have been occupied by the dead man. They go searching each room in turn until they came across a room with the same style of out-space-ish clothes the dead man was wearing. That started a trail of sleuthing leading to action mayhem in normal Murderbot style, cynicism and all.

This is very much in the style I’ve come to expect of Murderbot. Having read the first four novellas in the first two volumes of this series, it feels familiar with all the thrills and spills sprinkled with Murderbot’s usual paranoia and anxiousness. At the same time, like Murderbot himself, it has moved on in some ways. Murderbot is getting more used to dealing with humans, so much so he accepts Indah’s offer to be consultant in future investigations, ‘Only if it’s really weird.’

One aspect I particularly liked (spoiler alert) was that the murder turned out to have nothing to do with GrayCris. Yet, it was so in keeping with the world-building Martha Wells had done up to this point.

In summary, this is a fun standalone Murderbot novella full of action, character and laughs, except in the last case when Murderbot is too busy trying to survive.

In the second story, ‘System Collapse’, Murderbot is very much changed because of what happened in ‘Network Effect’. He has lost parts of his memory, every so often we get ‘redacted’ in his commentary. Also, he is not operating as decisively as he used to. He knows he did better in his past but he cannot, no matter how hard he tries, repeat that level of performance.

The lack of ‘Network Effect’ in the volumes was frustrating because, despite a lot of points being reiterated in ‘System Collapse’, I felt unable to grasp the full picture of what had gone on and probably missed out on the relevance of some things.

His friends know he is impaired. They agreed he should never return to the planet because of redacted. Nevertheless, he is called upon in an emergency to go down there to deal with a rogue agricultural bot to rescue his trapped friends, Ratthi, Iris and Tarik.

He is succeeding until he is not. A SecUnit from Barish-Estranza saves the situation for all of them. That complicates things for Murderbot’s humans. The issue is not that his friends will have pay Barish-Estranza for services rendered, but their plans for the colonists on the planet are way different. B-E are officially evaluating the planet for colonisation viability but are really going to assert their salvage-right ownership to rehome the inhabitants elsewhere under new onerous contracts, effectively turning them into indentured slaves.

Murderbot’s team were trying to avoid this. The first step, after assuring that the planet would remain virus-free or guaranteed containment of the virus, was to ask what the colonists wanted to do. However, they had divided up into factions that now, despite now knowing the true cause of their grievances with each other, would still take a long time to forgive on the emotional level. The negotiations were going to take expert handling and time. Karime is the woman for the job.

Meanwhile, Ratthi, Iris and Tarik persuade Murderbot to come along with them to place their final router before returning to their spaceship. Murderbot sees no reason why not.

Then the colonists advise Karime there could be another group of colonists they are not in contact with. They were said to have found a set of caves to live in in an area that was blacked out by a terraforming machine. It just so happens that Murderbot and his friends are close enough to that area to investigate if this separatist colony is still alive. After all, they could have died out because the virus or any one of many of other possibilities. Whichever way, if they are still alive, their opinion on their future must be sought. So off they go to search for the missing colonists with Murderbot pretending to be fine, but with only three drones his to command. What could possibly go wrong? It seems just about everything including a natural storm. With Murderbot being far from fine… you can guess some of the rest.

I welcomed the return of ART (Arsehole Research Transport) even if it was not the original ART. There is something about the banter between Murderbot and ART that makes one laugh, even if Murderbot has to explain the shorthand phrases used between them.

This novel is Murderbot, but not as we have come to know him. He is struggling, really hard at times, because of his impaired memory. Definitely a shadow of the former SecUnit he used to be. This has the hallmarks of a reset novel, one that changes the character so drastically that a totally new series of stories can be written. Is this new Murderbot worth writing and reading about? That will depend on the storylines, but I suspect not.

Having got so used to and enjoyed the action-packed sort-everything-out Murderbot of the five novellas, this novel came as a disappointment. That does not mean to say the laughs were missing, how could they be with ART around? But the Murderbot energy and sarcasm about humans was not up to its normal standards.

Rosie Oliver

July 2025

(pub: TORdotcom, 2025. 421 page enlarged paperback. Price: $22.99 (US). ISBN: 978-1-250-38984-8)

check out website: https://torpublishinggroup.com/the-murderbot-diaries-vol-3/