Rogue Protocol

The Murderbot Diaries is an award-winning science fiction series by American author Martha Wells. The installments in the series are All Systems Red (2017; novella), Artificial Condition (2018; novella), Rogue Protocol (2018; novella), Exit Strategy (2018; novella), Network Effect (2020; full-length novel), Fugitive Telemetry (2021; novella whose chronology takes place between Exit Strategy and Network Effect), and System Collapse (2023; full-length novel). Wells has also published three short stories in the same universe as the main Murderbot installments; two of these have different narrators than the central texts, which are all narrated by Murderbot itself.

The first four novellas follow a continuous narrative arc in which Murderbot decides to seek freedom from mega-corporation GrayCris, an organization that controls every aspect of life in the Corporation Rim, a series of planets where corporate and political control are essentially synonymous with one another. In All Systems Red, Murderbot works its last job under GrayCris’s control before escaping, encouraged by Dr. Mensah, someone from outside the Corporation Rim who believes that using AI constructs for labor is equivalent to enslavement.

In Artificial Condition, Murderbot uses its newfound freedom to investigate its past, which has been eliminated from its memory records. It learns more about GrayCris’s crimes and seeks, in Rogue Protocol, information that will prove Dr. Mensah’s theory about the corporation. In Exit Strategy, Murderbot learns that its actions have led GrayCris to target Mensah; it helps its mentor free herself from GrayCris’s machinations and learns that it has a future as an employed security consultant.

Wells’s series has won numerous awards throughout its tenure. All Systems Red won the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the Hugo Award for Best Novella, and the American Library Association’s Alex Award, which recognizes books that were written for adults but hold special appeal to young adult audiences. Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy were all nominated for the Hugo Award’s final ballot in 2019, but Wells only accepted the nomination for Artificial Condition, which won (“2019 Hugo Results.” The Hugo Awards). The subsequent installments in the series were routinely nominated for the Hugo Awards, and the full series won for Best Series in 2021 (“2021 Hugo Awards.” The Hugo Awards).