The Murderbot Diaries

The Murderbot Diaries is a science fiction space opera series written by Martha Wells. The series follows the AI construct who call themselves "murderbot", a security unit that has managed to hack it's own governor module and gain independence. Such independence is mostly used to watch soap operas, but as the series progresses they also gain friendships, which, as an introvert, they find inconvenient.

The series started out as a planned 4 book, novella-length series of stories published by Tor.com, but then gave way to more books - the fifth and sixth are full length novels. The books and the series as a whole have received some critical acclaim, the first (All Systems Red) winning the 2018 Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for Best Novella. The following three novellas (Artificial ConditionRogue ProtocolExit Strategy) all had sufficient votes for the final ballot of the 2019 Hugo award for best novella (all having been published in 2018), however the author declined all nominations except for Artificial Condition, which won, while also picking up the 2019 Locus award. The first full-length novel, Network Effect, won the 2021 Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for best novel.

The series itself also won the 2021 Hugo award for best series.

The Murderbot Diaries has also been picked by Apple to become a 10 part TV series, although not much else is known at this point.

Books in the series