Book Review: Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3) by Martha Wells
Cover art by Jaime Jones
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Murderbot Diaries (Book #3)
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 150 pages (Kindle Edition)
Word count: 32,400 words
Published: 7th August 2018 by Tordotcom
An action-packed story and Miki turned Rogue Protocol into a pleasant surprise for me, despite my preliminary disappointment.
“There needs to be an error code that means “I received your request but decided to ignore you.”
As we established in the previous two titles, Rogue Protocol successfully expanded upon the moral dilemma and the virtue of Murderbot further. This theme is everlasting throughout the series, the ones I’ve read anyway, and if this is not your jam, then The Murderbot Diaries might not be for you. Rogue Protocol is the third book in The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. Initially, I was disappointed by the lack of ART from Artificial Condition. It felt odd at first to not have ART play a major role in Rogue Protocol. I was so invested in their dialogues and connections. Thankfully, in exchange, we have Miki.
“Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”
Miki is not ART. Do not expect Miki to be like ART. However, there’s a chance I like Miki more than ART. Allow me to explain a bit here. There is a huge part of Miki that reminded me of my best friend, Choco Boy. Yes, I am going to talk about my animal companion very briefly here. Choco is a toy poodle, and believe me when I say this… He loves humans more than any other dog. He is the goodest boy. No bias is involved in this statement. A big contributing factor to this, in my opinion, is that Choco Boy is always treated with kindness by the humans he meets. In the meantime, dogs (even the same breed as him) sometimes barked at him for no reason, and he’s scared of that. Miki is, more or less, like that. Reading about Miki reminds me of Choco Boy. Miki is always treated with kindness, and it thinks of its humans as its best friends, similar to how it has been treated by its human friends. In a way, this is also why Murderbot cared about the humans from the first book in All Systems Red, but we will talk about that more in Exit Strategy.
“I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can’t just stop.”
I won’t take too much of your time on this review. You know the gist by now. If you enjoyed the previous two titles, you will most likely enjoy Rogue Protocol. Simple as that. I obviously enjoyed this novella, and I can definitely say if there is one thing that made Rogue Protocol differ from its predecessor, it is because this is the most action-oriented title of the series so far. Before Exit Strategy anyway. The confrontation between Murderbot and Combat Bot, in particular, was so cool. Rogue Protocol was indeed the first time I started to feel the development and build-up from the previous books paid off. While the series is not a favorite series of mine yet, I can see the massive potential regarding its adaptability into a TV show medium. I am so excited about the show. Hey, maybe Murderbot can watch its own story adaptation soon!
“Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)”
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