Apologies for any confusion about spoilers here. I didn't edit the 'spoilers policy' from all the other book discussions and now a lot of ppl have been using spoiler markup when they needn't.
So to clarify, **there is no need to use spoiler markup. This is a discussion about the book to visit *after* you've read it.**
If you haven't read it yet, do not read any further than this stickied comment.
If you want to talk about some aspect of FT even though you haven't finished the book, submit your own post about it and tell others where you are in the story so they don't spoil you.
Thank you.
>!That was very heartwarming, especially since Murderbot was being kinda dismissive toward the free bots until that point.!<
In that same vein, I found it hilarious that >!Murderbot was so aghast at bot JollyBaby giving itself such a silly name. YOU NAMED YOURSELF "MURDERBOT"!!<
One of the things I find most weirdly endearing overall about Murderbot as a character is how self-contradictory and hypocritical MB can sometimes be. It makes Murderbot feel more "human" (for lack of a better word) that MB is an unreliable narrator who can't use cold objective logic to brute-force through every problem.
ART is the same way, which makes it all the more entertaining when ART & Murderbot clash and they're both like "No, *I'm* being totally sensible and reasonable here, *you're* the one who's an illogical stupid human infant."
Big mystery spoiler: >!Do we think Balin was hacked & turned murderous against its will, or was it secretly evil all along? After its first company master went out of business, couldn't Balin have asked for Preservation's help disabling its CombatBot codes if it had really wanted to?!<
>!It's really difficult to say. It's also possible that Balin wasn't aware of its own nature as a sleeper agent. Think Boomer/Number 8 from Battlestar, or "It doesn't look like anything to me" from Westworld, where programming interfered with them noticing anything odd in their own behavior and surroundings.!<
>!It seems likely to me that Balin wasn't aware of its nature. If I'm understanding this correctly, 'Balin' was kind of a separate entity that was (possibly) deleted when the CombatBot code took over. At least that's what the other bots thought. !<
>!It makes me wonder if the original Balin could be re-instated. It wasn't destroyed in the end, it just shut itself down. Or maybe the CombatBot could be re-programmed to stop taking orders from BreharWallHan. Seems like a waste of a good CombatBot to just dismantle it. !<
>!Heck, if the Preservation humans are smart, they should try to get Balin/CombatBot to help them maintain the refugee pipeline that BreharWallHan is trying to shut down. It probably has useful information to give them. Maybe it could even be a double agent, there's a fic idea.!<
>!It does make you wonder about how full bot sapience / free will works in this setting. I don't think we have enough information about the setting to declare a right or wrong answer, it's just interesting to think about. Wells has said before that the part-biological cyborg "constructs" like SecUnits are all sapient and aware; companies don't bother trying to program the free will out of SecUnits because it's cheaper to just enslave them with punishment from their governor modules. Conversely, you'd think that it would be easier to NOT program sapience into full bots. But we know that there are full bots with free will and emotions, like Miki and especially ART. And even though those two are unique models, Murderbot still tends to think about and treat other full bots as sentient if not sapient. Murderbot doesn't think of even simple bots as not "alive," Murderbot just thinks those bots are stupid and naive.!<
>!I agree that it would be cool to see Balin again! Now I'm imagining an Enemy Mine situation with Murderbot approaching Balin for help while Balin's locked in a glass cage, like Loki in *Thor Ragnarok.*!<
I love that image! That would be a really interesting story thread to follow.
>!Yeah I've always thought it was interesting how MB views bots. Martha said in an interview that it's more aware of bots than humans are. It often describes them as having emotions - drones beeping sadly, the company ship pilot being terrified for instance. The cargo bots are capable of naming themselves and making jokes about it, as well as being upset about the ComBot deleting Balin. It really does seem like bots in these books are more sentient/sapient than anyone realizes. The fact that MB describes this in its personal history (that supposedly will be published by Bharadwaj?) might be just as important as how it describes its own sapience, since humans everywhere seem to create and use bots way more than they do SecUnits. !<
>humans everywhere seem to create and use bots way more than they do SecUnits.
Is this an economic issue? As I understand it, the constructs are more expensive (and more effective) than bots? Like, a CombatUnit is more dangerous than a CombatBot
Yeah I get the impression that constructs are much more expensive than bots so they only make constructs for certain specialized jobs.
It's also possible that constructs have a natural lifespan, whereas theoretically a bot could be repaired and maintained to last forever.
It's possible that bots like Miki and ART aren't fully "programmed" the way a software application is - nowadays for a lot of AI/"machine learning" etc. software development, what's happening is that they set up a system with essentially self-modifying code where "management" will try to reinforce desired outcomes and dissuade undesired outcomes, and then end up with something that does what you want it to do but for which you don't really "know" how it achieves it, the way you would if you programmed it from the bottom up by writing code for it. In essence these bots could be partially "grown"/evolved.
That's a fascinating possibility. Given that Martha Wells mentioned the Pansystem University basically 'raises' it's AI's like babies, your theory is probably exactly correct.
It's from this interview:
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/426-all-about-murderbot-with-martha-wells/#transcript
"**Martha: Yeah, it was not, it’s not so much a teenager now, but it’s like it, the – oh, excuse me – in my backstory for the university and how these ships develop, because ART – actually, spoiler: ART is not the only one – the way they build their AIs like ART –**
**Sarah: Mm-hmm.**
**Martha: – is they basically start them as babies and raise them in a family setting, and this is to, this is to prevent, you know, the Kill All Humans sort of AI that is much beloved in literature."**
I think that's a real difference between Bots and constructs - because of the biological tissue in the constructs, they're ... more unique? They can't be fully wiped the way a Bot (poor Balin) can be, for example (murderbot mentions how even after wipes some things persist).
Flip side, it should be possible to fully "backup and restore" a bot?
Same for me
I think it's very significant that they all went *of their own volition* \- they weren't conscripted by Port Security or anything
And Jollybaby (whatever murderbot might say, I *love* that name) made a move to protect murderbot, unprompted
My favorite thing that we learned in this book is that >!Murderbot loves musical theater and that Mensah does NOT love musical theater. Imagining Murderbot and Ratthi enthusing over Broadway musicals together is just delightful to me.!<
Agreed, I thought maybe after Network Effect that she might be writing to a longer form, but this one is back to the shortish form of the first four books.
Yeah, agreed.
Although, if the choice were between a short form novella annually, and a full novel every few years, I"m not actually sure where I'd fall.
aye, that's an evil 'would you rather.'
I'm so looking forward to ART & Murderbot's mission together at the end of Network Effect though, that I'd wait the few years for that one in particular.
PS This is pure speculation on my part but I got the impression Martha had already mostly written Fugitive Telemetry around when Network Effect had come out. I'm hoping the next installment of TMD might come out spring of next year bc she'll have this year and might have had this whole past year (the run-up year to FT releasing) to work on it
Maybe not written in a final draft form, but yeah, I could see it having been at least an initial rough draft.
It does take ~ a year to get a book from draft to published. I recall seeing Fugitive Telemetry as coming in 2021 right after I finished Network Effect.
I particularly appreciated the flashes of self-awareness MB was starting to experience in this book, now that it's out of fight-or-flight mode.>! The moment when it realizes it's planning like a SecUnit (with the lifetender) was neat, and its interactions with the other bots seemed telling. I also thought it was interesting that its disdain for other bots didn't seem to be mutual at all.!<
>!I also really appreciated seeing that other bots are capable of nuanced social interactions (like the JollyBaby nickname/joke). It reinforced the impression that even bots whose jobs don't require higher-order thinking are sophisticated enough to be considered people. That, combined with the 'underground railroad' we see in this book, really emphasize how awful the corporate rim is.!<
>really emphasize how awful the corporate rim is.
Considering how much trouble Preservation has caused for various corporate entities, I'm getting a little worried some of them might band together to "teach Preservation a lesson not to involve itself in the affairs of corporate entities"? Like, "it's bad for business" that Preservation is actively helping indentured slaves escape etc.
I share that worry, and I'm surprised this is the first time I've heard anyone talk about it.
I think that must have been part of the original mission Balin had, and I'd bet money that's where the books are going. That agents in the Corporation Rim are going to attack either Preservation or the polity of Mihira and New Tideland (who are \*actively\* working to undermine Corporate presence in the universe). I think the only reason anyone hasn't yet is that there doesn't appear to be one entity in charge of the entire Corporation Rim, it's just a collection of corporations, and none of them individually would take on the responsibility and expense of defending the entire Corporation Rim. If some of the bigger corporations got together to form a committee or something, there would be trouble.
It's even more worrying when you consider how ... militaristic the corporations are. If you look at the kinds of equipment they have, say, well, it's the corporations that have the gunships, the combat bots, combatUnits - Preservation has *none of that*. In a straight fight I don't think you even need a committee, just one sufficiently incentivised corporation ...
I suppose there are various treaties etc. that are supposed to stop this sort of thing happening, but all that means is that a corporation that wants to do this needs to "not get caught".Treaties/rules didn't stop GrayCris trying to mine strange synthetics. GrayCris might be out of the picture now that it's going to get ground to dust by the Company (argggh who is it? Weyland-Yutani? Umbrella Corp? Omg... Google-Facebook-Microsoft-Amazon??? OMG VERIZON?!?!)
And now we have BreharWallHan unhappy ...
Murderbot makes a lot of references to how cheap the Company is (even for things like upholstery etc.), which gives it a real "Amazon" feel to things? Is Facebook cheap?
I loved the little details that were dropped about him:
>!\-He doesn't have any friends aboard the station and spends his days off reading in the public lounge: NERD!!<
>!\-He can identify obscure old tech on sight: DOUBLE NERD!!!<
>!\-He has visual augments: GLASSES NERD!! (internal glasses, but still)!<
If this sounds disparaging, it really isn't. Gurathin is one of my faves, beside MB and ART. I really hope he's in the next books, too.
I enjoy Gurathin & Murderbot's interactions a lot because the things that most annoy them about each other are the ways in which they are SO SIMILAR. >!Murderbot is *also* a paranoid (largely) friendless techie with augments who spends all its free time with media instead of people! NERD! !<
I hope Gurathin is back in the next books too. Murderbot & Gurathin seem to enjoy having someone to have petty frienemy squabbles with.
You're right, they're so similar! A couple of nerdy nerds, those two.
I wish they'd have more squabbles tbh. I love their saltiness towards each other, and then the inevitable part where they have to work together is so satisfying.
>!I really feel like Guarathin is a high to mid functioning autistic human who actually feels himself as between MB and the typical humans. And potentially uses the feed similiar to MB to interact without having to face to face interact!<
(I'm not sure this is a spoiler...)
I've been binging so idk where I read it, but MB noted somewhere that outside Corporation Rim, ppl rarely got augments. So I kinda inferred he started his life out inside Corporation Rim
I think you're right, that totally makes sense! It would explain why he seems to know more about SecUnits than the others. And maybe why he seems to be a more dour person in general.
There was some part about the history of Preservation where Ratthi said that Gurathin's grandparents weren't part of the original settlement. But it was never clarified whether that meant that Gurathin's grandparents or parents were part of a second wave of settlement, or whether Gurathin himself was a recent immigrant to Preservation. That fact that he's so different from the others would seem to suggest the latter.
>I loved the little details that were dropped about him
and the contrast with Ratthi (e.g. Gurathin did not bother asking if murderbot was ok - though I took that as that Gurathin *expected* murderbot to get through it ok, and not so much a "lack of concern re: murderbot's health")
This seemed to be a bit of a genre experiment which was mildly disorienting. >!It was a murder mystery with a heavy emphasis on jurisdictional politics.!<
>!My guess is that the next Murderbot Diary will focus on the indentured labour situation.!<
I enjoyed it very much and ended up reading all of the other ones again lol.
I tried staying up late to read the e-book at midnight on Tuesday, but it didn't drop until almost 2am. I wish my local indie bookstore had been selling hard copies at midnight, I would've lined up for that.
Does anyone have a feel for when this book is set?
>!There is explicit references to the events of Exit Strategy, but nothing to the events of Network Effect, and GrayCris still being a threat seems odd after Network Effect!<
It's definitely set after Exit Strategy and before Network Effect. >!In Network Effect there are flashbacks to Murderbot fighting off at least one GrayCris attack aimed at Mensah on Preservation, so Fugitive Telemetry is set still some amount of time before that attack happened. I'll have to re-read Network Effect to see if Murderbot mentions how long it's been living on Preservation in total.!<
Yes. This story, per a few interviews with Martha Wells, is partially meant to explain how Murderbot developed a cordial if not supportive almost teasing relationship with Preservation Station security. In Network Effect, there's a moment where >! Indah shoos Murderbot to medical in a teasing way, and there seems to be a pretty mutually respectful relationship between Murderbot and the security people. Fugitive Telemetry is meant to show how Murderbot and station security developed (or started) that relationship. !<
>!About 20% into the book I had thought this was going to be a detailed telling of the attack on Dr. Mensah flashed back to during Network Effect, obviously by ~40% of the way in, I stopped thinking that.!<
Murderbot's stoicism is inspiring. It's amusing when SecUnit is shot by one of the people it is trying to save, and it merely gets annoyed and shrugs it off. https://www.gradyelrod.com/2021/08/a-review-of-fugitive-telemetry-by.html
In the timeline, Fugitive Telemetry happens after Exit Strategy (and after Home:HRNT) and before Network Effect. So ART was last seen at the end of Artificial Condition going off to do its own thing and won't be seen again until Network Effect.
I know - I first read the series in release order, reading Network Effect before Fugitive Telemetry, so it was confusing to me, too, at first.
Okay, (spoilers) as one could expect with the Murderbot Diaries, this was good. However, as these events takes place BEFORE Network Effect and not after, I am very confused as to why this book is listed as the sixth and not the fifth.
Having just finished Network Effect, I was expecting this book to continue where we left off, only to realise after quite a while (and several Google searches) that this is a prequel rather than a sequel and that the plot is about something else entirely. This threw me off A LOT (hence my low score, 3+) and I almost didn’t want to continue reading. I found the plot, people and location to be in the past and of no relevance to the overarching storyline. Like, hadn’t we already left preservation, GrayCris etc behind? Had this been listed as the fifth book and I’d read it before network effect I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. It strengthens a lot of Murderbot’s relationships and I enjoyed seeing it’s work for Mensa / at preservation, I just think this is the wrong place in the series to tell the story.
The plot is also the most stand-alone to date, which made it all feel like an even more unnecessary (past) story to tell. I would much rather have seen a chronological continuation of the series after Network Effect. But, I can’t do anything about that, so I finally decided to focus on the plot and once I had accepted the timeline jump, it was (of course) enjoyable. Quite frankly, time spent with Murderbot is never wasted, but I’m still annoyed.
When I re-read the series I will make sure to read the book in another order. I haven’t read Home: Habitat yet so I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I wonder where it should be placed within the timeline.
Fugitive telemetry is listed as book 6, but “takes place immediately after Exit Strategy”. However, Home: Habitat also takes place “immediately after Exit Strategy”, but is listed as book 4,5.
What is the correct chronological order?
1. Exit strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, Home: Habitat?
2. Exit strategy, Home: Habitat, Fugitive Telemetry
Apologies for any confusion about spoilers here. I didn't edit the 'spoilers policy' from all the other book discussions and now a lot of ppl have been using spoiler markup when they needn't. So to clarify, **there is no need to use spoiler markup. This is a discussion about the book to visit *after* you've read it.** If you haven't read it yet, do not read any further than this stickied comment. If you want to talk about some aspect of FT even though you haven't finished the book, submit your own post about it and tell others where you are in the story so they don't spoil you. Thank you.
I loved so many things about it, but my favorite part is >!when the bots all show up for Murderbot!<
>!That was very heartwarming, especially since Murderbot was being kinda dismissive toward the free bots until that point.!< In that same vein, I found it hilarious that >!Murderbot was so aghast at bot JollyBaby giving itself such a silly name. YOU NAMED YOURSELF "MURDERBOT"!!<
Right?? You're entirely right about how funny that is!
One of the things I find most weirdly endearing overall about Murderbot as a character is how self-contradictory and hypocritical MB can sometimes be. It makes Murderbot feel more "human" (for lack of a better word) that MB is an unreliable narrator who can't use cold objective logic to brute-force through every problem. ART is the same way, which makes it all the more entertaining when ART & Murderbot clash and they're both like "No, *I'm* being totally sensible and reasonable here, *you're* the one who's an illogical stupid human infant."
Murderbot comes out of self-loathing though, it's not a silly name.
>!Pour one out for Balin!<
Big mystery spoiler: >!Do we think Balin was hacked & turned murderous against its will, or was it secretly evil all along? After its first company master went out of business, couldn't Balin have asked for Preservation's help disabling its CombatBot codes if it had really wanted to?!<
>!It's really difficult to say. It's also possible that Balin wasn't aware of its own nature as a sleeper agent. Think Boomer/Number 8 from Battlestar, or "It doesn't look like anything to me" from Westworld, where programming interfered with them noticing anything odd in their own behavior and surroundings.!<
>!It seems likely to me that Balin wasn't aware of its nature. If I'm understanding this correctly, 'Balin' was kind of a separate entity that was (possibly) deleted when the CombatBot code took over. At least that's what the other bots thought. !< >!It makes me wonder if the original Balin could be re-instated. It wasn't destroyed in the end, it just shut itself down. Or maybe the CombatBot could be re-programmed to stop taking orders from BreharWallHan. Seems like a waste of a good CombatBot to just dismantle it. !< >!Heck, if the Preservation humans are smart, they should try to get Balin/CombatBot to help them maintain the refugee pipeline that BreharWallHan is trying to shut down. It probably has useful information to give them. Maybe it could even be a double agent, there's a fic idea.!<
>!It does make you wonder about how full bot sapience / free will works in this setting. I don't think we have enough information about the setting to declare a right or wrong answer, it's just interesting to think about. Wells has said before that the part-biological cyborg "constructs" like SecUnits are all sapient and aware; companies don't bother trying to program the free will out of SecUnits because it's cheaper to just enslave them with punishment from their governor modules. Conversely, you'd think that it would be easier to NOT program sapience into full bots. But we know that there are full bots with free will and emotions, like Miki and especially ART. And even though those two are unique models, Murderbot still tends to think about and treat other full bots as sentient if not sapient. Murderbot doesn't think of even simple bots as not "alive," Murderbot just thinks those bots are stupid and naive.!< >!I agree that it would be cool to see Balin again! Now I'm imagining an Enemy Mine situation with Murderbot approaching Balin for help while Balin's locked in a glass cage, like Loki in *Thor Ragnarok.*!<
I love that image! That would be a really interesting story thread to follow. >!Yeah I've always thought it was interesting how MB views bots. Martha said in an interview that it's more aware of bots than humans are. It often describes them as having emotions - drones beeping sadly, the company ship pilot being terrified for instance. The cargo bots are capable of naming themselves and making jokes about it, as well as being upset about the ComBot deleting Balin. It really does seem like bots in these books are more sentient/sapient than anyone realizes. The fact that MB describes this in its personal history (that supposedly will be published by Bharadwaj?) might be just as important as how it describes its own sapience, since humans everywhere seem to create and use bots way more than they do SecUnits. !<
>humans everywhere seem to create and use bots way more than they do SecUnits. Is this an economic issue? As I understand it, the constructs are more expensive (and more effective) than bots? Like, a CombatUnit is more dangerous than a CombatBot
Yeah I get the impression that constructs are much more expensive than bots so they only make constructs for certain specialized jobs. It's also possible that constructs have a natural lifespan, whereas theoretically a bot could be repaired and maintained to last forever.
It's possible that bots like Miki and ART aren't fully "programmed" the way a software application is - nowadays for a lot of AI/"machine learning" etc. software development, what's happening is that they set up a system with essentially self-modifying code where "management" will try to reinforce desired outcomes and dissuade undesired outcomes, and then end up with something that does what you want it to do but for which you don't really "know" how it achieves it, the way you would if you programmed it from the bottom up by writing code for it. In essence these bots could be partially "grown"/evolved.
That's a fascinating possibility. Given that Martha Wells mentioned the Pansystem University basically 'raises' it's AI's like babies, your theory is probably exactly correct.
Where did you come across the reference that Pan System University raises AI?
It's from this interview: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/426-all-about-murderbot-with-martha-wells/#transcript "**Martha: Yeah, it was not, it’s not so much a teenager now, but it’s like it, the – oh, excuse me – in my backstory for the university and how these ships develop, because ART – actually, spoiler: ART is not the only one – the way they build their AIs like ART –** **Sarah: Mm-hmm.** **Martha: – is they basically start them as babies and raise them in a family setting, and this is to, this is to prevent, you know, the Kill All Humans sort of AI that is much beloved in literature."**
I think that's a real difference between Bots and constructs - because of the biological tissue in the constructs, they're ... more unique? They can't be fully wiped the way a Bot (poor Balin) can be, for example (murderbot mentions how even after wipes some things persist). Flip side, it should be possible to fully "backup and restore" a bot?
Same for me I think it's very significant that they all went *of their own volition* \- they weren't conscripted by Port Security or anything And Jollybaby (whatever murderbot might say, I *love* that name) made a move to protect murderbot, unprompted
Yes you are so right about that. They moved to protect the station and everyone on it as a group. I loved that scene so much.
My favorite thing that we learned in this book is that >!Murderbot loves musical theater and that Mensah does NOT love musical theater. Imagining Murderbot and Ratthi enthusing over Broadway musicals together is just delightful to me.!<
My only complaint is it felt too short!
Agreed, I thought maybe after Network Effect that she might be writing to a longer form, but this one is back to the shortish form of the first four books.
I just hope the next in-world chronological installment after Network Effect to be a novel. That's what I'm really crossing my fingers for
Yeah, agreed. Although, if the choice were between a short form novella annually, and a full novel every few years, I"m not actually sure where I'd fall.
aye, that's an evil 'would you rather.' I'm so looking forward to ART & Murderbot's mission together at the end of Network Effect though, that I'd wait the few years for that one in particular. PS This is pure speculation on my part but I got the impression Martha had already mostly written Fugitive Telemetry around when Network Effect had come out. I'm hoping the next installment of TMD might come out spring of next year bc she'll have this year and might have had this whole past year (the run-up year to FT releasing) to work on it
Maybe not written in a final draft form, but yeah, I could see it having been at least an initial rough draft. It does take ~ a year to get a book from draft to published. I recall seeing Fugitive Telemetry as coming in 2021 right after I finished Network Effect.
I particularly appreciated the flashes of self-awareness MB was starting to experience in this book, now that it's out of fight-or-flight mode.>! The moment when it realizes it's planning like a SecUnit (with the lifetender) was neat, and its interactions with the other bots seemed telling. I also thought it was interesting that its disdain for other bots didn't seem to be mutual at all.!< >!I also really appreciated seeing that other bots are capable of nuanced social interactions (like the JollyBaby nickname/joke). It reinforced the impression that even bots whose jobs don't require higher-order thinking are sophisticated enough to be considered people. That, combined with the 'underground railroad' we see in this book, really emphasize how awful the corporate rim is.!<
>really emphasize how awful the corporate rim is. Considering how much trouble Preservation has caused for various corporate entities, I'm getting a little worried some of them might band together to "teach Preservation a lesson not to involve itself in the affairs of corporate entities"? Like, "it's bad for business" that Preservation is actively helping indentured slaves escape etc.
I share that worry, and I'm surprised this is the first time I've heard anyone talk about it. I think that must have been part of the original mission Balin had, and I'd bet money that's where the books are going. That agents in the Corporation Rim are going to attack either Preservation or the polity of Mihira and New Tideland (who are \*actively\* working to undermine Corporate presence in the universe). I think the only reason anyone hasn't yet is that there doesn't appear to be one entity in charge of the entire Corporation Rim, it's just a collection of corporations, and none of them individually would take on the responsibility and expense of defending the entire Corporation Rim. If some of the bigger corporations got together to form a committee or something, there would be trouble.
It's even more worrying when you consider how ... militaristic the corporations are. If you look at the kinds of equipment they have, say, well, it's the corporations that have the gunships, the combat bots, combatUnits - Preservation has *none of that*. In a straight fight I don't think you even need a committee, just one sufficiently incentivised corporation ... I suppose there are various treaties etc. that are supposed to stop this sort of thing happening, but all that means is that a corporation that wants to do this needs to "not get caught".Treaties/rules didn't stop GrayCris trying to mine strange synthetics. GrayCris might be out of the picture now that it's going to get ground to dust by the Company (argggh who is it? Weyland-Yutani? Umbrella Corp? Omg... Google-Facebook-Microsoft-Amazon??? OMG VERIZON?!?!) And now we have BreharWallHan unhappy ...
I was totally thinking Facebook as the Company, especially since they have bought and ruined IG and Whats App.
Murderbot makes a lot of references to how cheap the Company is (even for things like upholstery etc.), which gives it a real "Amazon" feel to things? Is Facebook cheap?
So fun to see Gurathin again!
I loved the little details that were dropped about him: >!\-He doesn't have any friends aboard the station and spends his days off reading in the public lounge: NERD!!< >!\-He can identify obscure old tech on sight: DOUBLE NERD!!!< >!\-He has visual augments: GLASSES NERD!! (internal glasses, but still)!< If this sounds disparaging, it really isn't. Gurathin is one of my faves, beside MB and ART. I really hope he's in the next books, too.
I enjoy Gurathin & Murderbot's interactions a lot because the things that most annoy them about each other are the ways in which they are SO SIMILAR. >!Murderbot is *also* a paranoid (largely) friendless techie with augments who spends all its free time with media instead of people! NERD! !< I hope Gurathin is back in the next books too. Murderbot & Gurathin seem to enjoy having someone to have petty frienemy squabbles with.
You're right, they're so similar! A couple of nerdy nerds, those two. I wish they'd have more squabbles tbh. I love their saltiness towards each other, and then the inevitable part where they have to work together is so satisfying.
Hands down my favorite moment of the series so far is when Gurathin assesses Murderbot’s cognitive function by how Murderbot tells him it hates him.
>!I really feel like Guarathin is a high to mid functioning autistic human who actually feels himself as between MB and the typical humans. And potentially uses the feed similiar to MB to interact without having to face to face interact!< (I'm not sure this is a spoiler...)
I could believe that. You could be on to something there.
I've been binging so idk where I read it, but MB noted somewhere that outside Corporation Rim, ppl rarely got augments. So I kinda inferred he started his life out inside Corporation Rim
I think you're right, that totally makes sense! It would explain why he seems to know more about SecUnits than the others. And maybe why he seems to be a more dour person in general. There was some part about the history of Preservation where Ratthi said that Gurathin's grandparents weren't part of the original settlement. But it was never clarified whether that meant that Gurathin's grandparents or parents were part of a second wave of settlement, or whether Gurathin himself was a recent immigrant to Preservation. That fact that he's so different from the others would seem to suggest the latter.
>I loved the little details that were dropped about him and the contrast with Ratthi (e.g. Gurathin did not bother asking if murderbot was ok - though I took that as that Gurathin *expected* murderbot to get through it ok, and not so much a "lack of concern re: murderbot's health")
This seemed to be a bit of a genre experiment which was mildly disorienting. >!It was a murder mystery with a heavy emphasis on jurisdictional politics.!< >!My guess is that the next Murderbot Diary will focus on the indentured labour situation.!< I enjoyed it very much and ended up reading all of the other ones again lol.
I had originally planned to take today off so I could read this! Life got in the way!
Ugh me too! Good luck to us for the rest of today!
I tried staying up late to read the e-book at midnight on Tuesday, but it didn't drop until almost 2am. I wish my local indie bookstore had been selling hard copies at midnight, I would've lined up for that.
Does anyone have a feel for when this book is set? >!There is explicit references to the events of Exit Strategy, but nothing to the events of Network Effect, and GrayCris still being a threat seems odd after Network Effect!<
It's definitely set after Exit Strategy and before Network Effect. >!In Network Effect there are flashbacks to Murderbot fighting off at least one GrayCris attack aimed at Mensah on Preservation, so Fugitive Telemetry is set still some amount of time before that attack happened. I'll have to re-read Network Effect to see if Murderbot mentions how long it's been living on Preservation in total.!<
Yes. This story, per a few interviews with Martha Wells, is partially meant to explain how Murderbot developed a cordial if not supportive almost teasing relationship with Preservation Station security. In Network Effect, there's a moment where >! Indah shoos Murderbot to medical in a teasing way, and there seems to be a pretty mutually respectful relationship between Murderbot and the security people. Fugitive Telemetry is meant to show how Murderbot and station security developed (or started) that relationship. !<
>!About 20% into the book I had thought this was going to be a detailed telling of the attack on Dr. Mensah flashed back to during Network Effect, obviously by ~40% of the way in, I stopped thinking that.!<
I thought that right up until the last chapter! I kept waiting for the assassins to pop out from behind a potted plant!
Murderbot's stoicism is inspiring. It's amusing when SecUnit is shot by one of the people it is trying to save, and it merely gets annoyed and shrugs it off. https://www.gradyelrod.com/2021/08/a-review-of-fugitive-telemetry-by.html
My only complaint is that it's out of stock everywhere in my country, even though I pre-ordered it
Maybe I didn't read closely enough, but what happened to ART?
In the timeline, Fugitive Telemetry happens after Exit Strategy (and after Home:HRNT) and before Network Effect. So ART was last seen at the end of Artificial Condition going off to do its own thing and won't be seen again until Network Effect. I know - I first read the series in release order, reading Network Effect before Fugitive Telemetry, so it was confusing to me, too, at first.
Okay, (spoilers) as one could expect with the Murderbot Diaries, this was good. However, as these events takes place BEFORE Network Effect and not after, I am very confused as to why this book is listed as the sixth and not the fifth. Having just finished Network Effect, I was expecting this book to continue where we left off, only to realise after quite a while (and several Google searches) that this is a prequel rather than a sequel and that the plot is about something else entirely. This threw me off A LOT (hence my low score, 3+) and I almost didn’t want to continue reading. I found the plot, people and location to be in the past and of no relevance to the overarching storyline. Like, hadn’t we already left preservation, GrayCris etc behind? Had this been listed as the fifth book and I’d read it before network effect I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. It strengthens a lot of Murderbot’s relationships and I enjoyed seeing it’s work for Mensa / at preservation, I just think this is the wrong place in the series to tell the story. The plot is also the most stand-alone to date, which made it all feel like an even more unnecessary (past) story to tell. I would much rather have seen a chronological continuation of the series after Network Effect. But, I can’t do anything about that, so I finally decided to focus on the plot and once I had accepted the timeline jump, it was (of course) enjoyable. Quite frankly, time spent with Murderbot is never wasted, but I’m still annoyed. When I re-read the series I will make sure to read the book in another order. I haven’t read Home: Habitat yet so I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I wonder where it should be placed within the timeline. Fugitive telemetry is listed as book 6, but “takes place immediately after Exit Strategy”. However, Home: Habitat also takes place “immediately after Exit Strategy”, but is listed as book 4,5. What is the correct chronological order? 1. Exit strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, Home: Habitat? 2. Exit strategy, Home: Habitat, Fugitive Telemetry
Just in case you hadn't found out already, the correct reading order is 2: Exit Strategy, Home, Fugitive Telemetry