Set between Exit Strategy and Network Effect, it feels a bit like a regression. The main misstep in Fugitive Telemetry is it’s place in the Murderbot timeline. As evident in Fugitive Telemetry, and all previous Murderbot novellas, Wells excels in deep storytelling, all in under 200 pages. When I’m faced with this attitude, I immediately recommend the Murderbot Diaries. I’ve talked to readers who tend to say they don’t want to read novellas because they don’t feel like it’s a whole story. There is something in the way that Wells writes the Murderbot Diaries that fits perfectly in the novella space, but never lacks the world and character building you’d get from a 500+ page space opera. For Murderbot, the something else would be watching media, but it knows that helping the humans will go a long way in making it’s existence easier.

We’ve got a dead body, some incompetent police types, and the gruff investigator who will definitely solve the murder but would rather be doing something else instead. Reading this was akin to watching a murder mystery procedural TV episode. Now, sometimes filler episodes don’t add much to the overall story, but this is Martha Wells we are talking about and she really nails it when it comes to Murderbot. In terms that I think Murderbot would appreciate, Fugitive Telemetry feels a bit like a filler episode on a TV series. While Murderbot is not happy about it’s new situation, it needs to find a way to overcome it’s dislike of the slow thinking humans (seriously, how are humans so slow?) and determine whether this murder has anything to do with Gre圜ris or if something more foul is afoot. There is a dead body on Preservation Station and Murderbot is going to have to work with the humans to solve the mystery. In this latest installment of the Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells continues to give readers action-packed adventures with the most human non-human character in science fiction today. Everyone’s favourite media obsessed rogue SecUnit, Murderbot, is back in form with Fugitive Telemetry.

Fugitive telemetry martha wells