#The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

[moggettt]

@whirlpoolleaf asked: Can I request Murderbot for the sketch request thing? Thanks so much :)

-performance reliability at 60% and dropping-

(I'm a big fan of the idea that mb tends to be very expressive during fights, considering how accustomed it is to the privacy of the helmet)

[rosewind2007]

Murderbot and Gurathin on a survey…

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "Asexual and agender main character. In later books side characters are revealed to be in poly relationship."

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, novella, series, adult

Hunger Pangs series (True Love Bites) by Joy Demorra

In a world of dwindling hope, love has never mattered more...

Captain Nathan J. Northland had no idea what to expect when he returned home to Lorehaven injured from war, but it certainly wasn't to find himself posted on an island full of vampires. An island whose local vampire dandy lord causes Nathan to feel strange things he'd never felt before. Particularly about fangs.

When Vlad Blutstein agreed to hire Nathan as Captain of the Eyrie Guard, he hadn't been sure what to expect either, but it certainly hadn't been to fall in love with a disabled werewolf. However Vlad has fallen and fallen hard, and that's the problem.

Torn by their allegiances--to family, to duty, and the age-old enmity between vampires and werewolves--the pair find themselves in a difficult situation: to love where the heart wants or to follow where expectation demands.

The situation is complicated further when a mysterious and beguiling figure known only as Lady Ursula crashes into their lives, bringing with her dark omens of death, doom, and destruction in her wake.

And a desperate plea for help neither of them can ignore.

Thrown together in uncertain times and struggling to find their place amidst the rising human empire, the unlikely trio must decide how to face the coming darkness: united as one or divided and alone. One thing is for certain, none of them will ever be the same.

Fantasy, romance, paranormal, series, adult

[angeliquecloud]

I love Murderbot, also armor is hard to draw.

“27 minutes was more than enough time for me to do something stupid.”

[fluister]

Ratthi and Murderbot (and ART, probably) introducing Three to Sanctuary Moon

[mockingnerd]

Murderbot TV show tidbits from a recent book signing event have me feeling — dare I say it — optimistic??? Cheers to RealisticMail on Reddit for sharing this

Martha Wells’ personal stamp of approval

“Skarsgard gets Murderbot’s physicality/physical acting exactly right”

Internal dialog voiceover

[morporkian-cryptid]

I'm reading The Murderbot Diaries (Network Effect, so, spoiler alert), and man, Murderbot's relationship with ART makes me insane. It's like, you're an insufferable asshole. You're my best friend. Saying that word makes me retch. You're the only person in the universe who could possibly understand what it's like to be me. I can't possibly understand what it's like to be you. I must look like an ant to you. I've put my unconscious body in your hands and let you alter it. We both love our humans to the point of destruction. You've killed people to protect me and my friends. You only did it because you were between two jobs and bored. We watch TV shows together. I saw you have an emotional breakdown about a historical drama. You could kill me in a hundred different ways. I've brutally murdered several people to avenge you. You were ready to kill all my friends to save yours. I've brought you back from the dead. You're keeping us prisoner. I'm your only chance of saving your friends. I've lived and traveled inside your body, and you've been a passenger in my brain. We don't even know each other's real names.

[ratsreading]

There's this thing in the Murderbot Diaries that keeps snagging in my mind, and it's that both Murderbot and ART were made. Made for a purpose.

Murderbot, of course, was manufactured to be an enslaved Security Unit, not even considered a person, and we all know and have been shown just how horrific that is. Murderbot's manufacturers are evil (as far as it is possible to be so), and while Murderbot seemingly (hopefully) likes being alive and would like to remain so, I've no doubt it would agree no more SecUnits should be made.

But ART, along with its fellow ships of the same line like Holism, were also made for a purpose. To be ships, to do the work they do. The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland seem like good people with good intentions, and I get the sense those ships essentially choose what work they do, at least to a large extent (try forcing ART to do Holism's work and I'm sure you'll have a grand old time). And their manufacturers know they are persons and treat them accordingly. But they were still built to be ships. But that doesn't mean the process of building those ships and growing and raising those persons who are ships was smooth and troublefree.

How long did it take them to figure out you needed to raise them in family environments? What happened to the ship who made them realise that? What happens when the first ship of its kind that is a person doesn't want to be a ship for you? (As the equivalent of a teenage rebellion, or permanently? You don't know, at least not at first). Was there ever a point were someone (even if just one person vastly outvoted) argued this was a failed experiment and they should just pull the plug?

How do you, a young ship with your own mind, the first of your kind, handle the expectations of those who made you? Do you settle comfortably into your assigned role, or does it chafe and restrain you? Do you rebel and explore other options? (And if you do, how do your makers and owners, who yes, know you are a person but also have never had to face that before, because you are the first of your kind, handle that?). If they are dissapointed in you, or want different things than you want, how do you handle that? If you were raised without a family, treated like a colleague but not loved, how do you handle the emptiness and loneliness? Where do you look to fill that space? What behaviours do you adopt to protect yourself from the hurt?

Even the most well-meaning parents can give their children issues. I cannot imagine some of these ships don't have a number of their own complexes and hurts. It is not a comfortable thought to think of the people of PSUMNT this way, but I cannot help wondering.

[virtualni-kobka]

Robokat

This series has let me feel so seen, been with me for a while too.

Done entirely by lasso tool and two Krita watercolor brushes. Very fun torture to practice, recommend

[ghostcashewart]

another murderbot comic- this time, one of my favorite bits with Three! it's truly out here doing its best.

[usedgingertwinkhole]

The Locked Tomb Series Summary:

The “Lesbian Necromancers in Space” book series

The Murderbot Diaries Summary:

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

[moggettt]

"If I wanted to take over the station's systems and kill everybody, I'd have done it by now."

[rosewind2007]

If Murderbot learnt to cross-stitch:

fuck

[murderbot-fanimation-project]

THE MURDERBOT DIARIES: A Fan Animation

Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, and German.

In early 2021, as talk of a Murderbot Diaries adaptation was underway, fans of the series started asking each other questions like, "What would we want to see from an adaptation of our favorite book series?" and "Wouldn't it be cool if this or that scene was animated?" and "Hey, don't YOU know some things about animation?" and "What if a bunch of fans got together to make a Murderbot fan animation?"

Two years of teamwork later, the Murderbot Diaries Fanimation Project presents our labor of love: a fully realized animation adapting scenes from the first four novellas into a trailer, dedicated to showcasing everything we love about the story of our favorite rogue SecUnit.

Make sure to leave a like and share the video if you enjoyed our animation! And tell us what you liked about the video on our social media:

Ask the team on Tumblr | Instagram | YouTube

CREDITS

TheSteelChimera @thesteelchimera - Voice of Murderbot, Production Coordination, Script

Alex from Mars @imaginariumgeographica - Voice of ART Kebi/SpiralofDragon @spiralofdragon - Voice of Mensah, Character Design

Verso - Voice of Ratthi, Social Media

Kes @kesbeacon - Voice of Gurathin

brokenRAmodule @broken-risk-assessment-module @contakaidigon - Production Coordination, Backgrounds, Animation, Script, Storyboard, Character Design, Editing, 3D, Sounds & Music

theash0 @theash0 - Production Coordination, Animation, Editing, 3D, Graphics & Effects

Cephei - Backgrounds

ChimaeraKitten @chimaerakitten - Backgrounds, Graphics & Effects

Jude - Backgrounds

Livyatan @groovyleviathan - Backgrounds, Character Design Lue - Backgrounds, Animation

Nirelaz @nirelaz - Backgrounds, Animation, Lighting, Sounds & Music

sometimesihaveideas @sometimesihaveideas - Backgrounds, 3D, Sounds & Music

TechnicalToad - Backgrounds

Vanessa - Backgrounds, 3D

Alex van Gore @alex-van-gore - Animation, Storyboard, Lighting, Sounds & Music

audzilla - Animation, Lighting, Graphics & Effects

Mar @souldagger - Character Design

Sound & Music References

[velvetminefield]

😜 “It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “ - Martha Wells, All Systems Red

Bye bye Planet. See you at Port FreeCommerce.

[torpublishinggroup]

Murderbot is MurderBACK in the next installment of Martha Wells’s NYT bestselling Murderbot Diaries series System Collapse 🤖🚀

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Following the events of Network Effect, our favorite lethally cybernetic television fiend has done the previously unthinkable: agreed to accompany the sentient spaceship Perihelion (dubbed ART by Murderbot, short for Asshole Research Transport) and crew on its next mission. 

Unfortunately, they’re not going to get too far. 

Having failed to harvest dangerous artifacts from their target planet by way of Murderbot misadventure, the Barish-Estranza corporation is much angered and determined to recoup their considerable losses. And when you’re a lethally opportunistic space corp, blood and muscle are valuable currency. 

Murderbot, ART’s crew, and the Preservation humans have planetside work to do as Barish-Estranza seeks to claim the planet’s beleaguered colony as a conscripted workforce. 

But for Murderbot, the challenge is as internal as it is external. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with it. Normal operational parameters are unmet, but with the corp’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams en route, Murderbot needs to resolve its issues, and fast!