Book Review: "Exit Strategy" by Martha Wells
*Spoiler alert!*
Exit Strategy is the fourth entry in the “Murderbot Diaries” series. These action-packed and humorous novellas chronicling Murderbot’s journey to find himself and protecting various people along the way have quickly become my new favorite sci-fi series. I am glad that the series continues past this one, even though it was written to wrap up the series, which I think it did nicely.
(Side note: I apologize for misgendering Murderbot. Just because a guy voices Murderbot in the audiobooks, doesn’t mean Murderbot is male. It is canon that Murderbot doesn’t have any gender-distinguishing bits. From here on out, I will refer to Murderbot as “they,” “them,” or “their,” since “it” doesn’t sound right, considering they are a person.)
This time, Murderbot gets a lead that Greycris has kidnapped Dr. Mensah, and they find themself risking quite a bit to get her back from the corporation’s clutches. Greycris thinks Dr. Mensah has critical data that Greycris doesn’t want to come to light, the data Murderbot had shipped to her home for secure delivery, data that told of illegal operations at a former terraforming site.
There’s nothing more dangerous than a corporation backed into a corner in this universe, with corporations being powerful political entities in their own rights. Greycris is throwing everything at Murderbot, including combat SecUnits, to stop them from rescuing Dr. Mensah, after a meeting to pay the ransom by Dr. Mensah’s colleagues goes awry.
“By tricky I meant I was getting an average of an 85 percent chance of failure and death, and it was only that low because my last diagnostic said my risk assessment module was wonky. (I know, that explains a lot about me.)”
I found Murderbot’s reuniting with the former survey team from book one poignant and hilarious at the same time. The dynamics between certain characters and Murderbot still stand. (If you know, you know.) And while Murderbot has grown in terms of their socialization skills, they still find talking extremely draining and being touched without consent distressing. (You and me both, Murderbot.)
“In the shows, I saw humans comfort each other all the time at moments like this. I had never wanted that and I still didn’t. (Touching while rendering assistance, shielding humans from explosions, etc., is different.) But I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “‘Uh, you can hug me if you need to.’”
However, Murderbot is willing to make that sacrifice for Dr. Mensah, because they truly care about her, no matter how much they don’t want to admit it.
“I was having an emotion, and I hate that.”
I love that Murderbot, a security robot with organic parts, who is offended at comparisons to humanity, is very much human. They grapple with difficult emotions and struggles, like anxiety and depression, which especially resonates with me. Their sense of being out of place and not belonging hitting another chord in my soul.
Looming over all of this is that, after the battle, Murderbot finds themself coming full circle in their struggle over living with Dr. Mensah in her non-corporate colony. Will they accept a place amongst Dr. Mensah’s people, or will they continue to make their lonely way through the galaxy?
Read to find out!
Happy reading! By the time you are reading this review, I will gladly be moving on to book five in the series, Network Effect. What a treat this series is!
--BookOwl
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