Book Review: "Rogue Protocol" by Martha Wells
“There needs to be an error code that means ‘I received your request but decided to ignore you.’”
Rogue Protocol, the third Murderbot adventure, lights a bit more of a fire under Murderbot when people start worrying where the liberated SecUnit is. Because he’s not with guardian Dr. Mensa. Of course, this is all because of the continuing investigation into Grey Cris, an incident of planetary survey murder that touched off the whole series. They want the evidence the SecUnit can provide and the whole case is put on hold until further notice.
Murderbot:
Trying not to freak out, Murderbot instead decides to hitch a ride to another planet where Grey Cris has done ill, a planet slated for terraforming mysteriously abandoned, so he can gather more evidence against the corporation on Dr. Mensa’s behalf. Murderbot gets his opening when a new company, seeking to repossess the abandoned operation, hires security (two human security guards) to protect the assessment team boarding the terraforming station.
Murderbot must pretend to be a SecUnit under secret contract with the company to supply security backup. And he’s very thrilled to be back in the SecUnit role. Very thrilled.
“I stared straight ahead. If there was one thing good about this situation, it was reinforcing how great my decisions to (a) hack my governor module and (b) escape were. Being a SecUnit sucked. I couldn’t wait to get back to my wild rogue rampage of hitching rides on bot-piloted transports and watching my serials.”
The major hurdle to pull off this SecUnit act is by convincing Miki, a robot doted on by the assessment team, to take Murderbot’s word for it that he was here to protect them all. Very quickly, the human-modeled bot frustrates Murderbot with its naivety and cheerful demeanor, until he realizes that Miki has no reason to distrust humanity because of how well it’s treated by those around it.
“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.”
Historically, poor Murderbot hasn’t had that experience with humans, and the respect and care his post-hacking-the-governing-module era clients show him continues to throw him off guard. Even if he remains frustrated by how willing humans are to throw themselves into danger. Rogue Protocol is not very different in this regard.
When a member of the assessment team is taken by a mysterious combat bot, it’s all Murderbot can do to prevent his team from being slaughtered by the opposing force that seems to want to keep the terraforming station out of the hands of the new company.
Pretty soon, it becomes a battle for survival when it becomes clear the station the team is on is slated for demolition by Grey Cris—without anyone’s permission, let alone the new company’s, not surprisingly—and Murderbot must get them all back to the shuttle in one piece. Not to mention that the human security contractors are not who they seem to be.
Rogue Protocol is a fast-paced adventure with our favorite antisocial bot who finds himself having to save the day when he would rather just watch his entertainment feed. It ups the ante in the “Murderbot Diaries” series, as a subplot becomes more prominent within this story. Hint, it has something to do with aliens.
Just read the book! (Or listen to the audiobook. The narrator is fantastic.)
Happy reading!
--BookOwl
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