Rogue Protocol

The Murderbot Diaries The Murderbot Diaries, #3

by Martha Wells

eBook, 131 pages

English language

Published Nov. 7, 2018 by Tordotcom.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-18543-3
ASIN:: B0756JSWGL
Goodreads:: 37535439

(61 reviews)

Sci-fi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

1 edition

QuinoaQueen reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

About The Same As Book 2

3 stars

While the previous book in The Murderbot Diaries focused a lot on dialogue, here there is a good mix of action and emotion, with another new bot/human relationship dynamic that added more to the world building.

The Murderbot story is interesting, the plot with GrayCris seems like it's going somewhere, but these past two books feel like a setup for the fourth book in a way that left both feeling incomplete. Murderbot still hasn't grown to like humans or see anything in a different light, but readers did get more insight of it's relationship with humans from it's reactions to Miki's relationship with it's leader.

Repetitive plots aside, I'm hoping that the fourth book will bring out new aspects of Murderbot as a character, shed some light on it's past, and take those final steps into the emotional impact of Murderbot's story.

3/5 for the humor, the fun action, the …

3/5 for the humor, the fun action, the surface-level side characters, and the fast pace adventure I've come to really enjoy in Wells writing.

Flauschbuch reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Maybe too focussed on the action

4 stars

It started out as a page turner for me but lost a bit of steam during the various action scenes in the terraforming base. Not as thought-provoking as the previous installment and more action-oriented. We get to see a different human-bot relationship with Abene and Miki. I liked Miki, the naive robot, from the start. We also get to see another instance of GrayCris being ruthless. The ending is quite sad but leads to the finale of this story that the first four novellas cover.

Books That Burn reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Review of 'Rogue Protocol' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

ROGUE PROTOCOL finds Murderbot trying to get answers about its former corporation's past and hoping to avoid being friends with an overly familiar robot and its humans.

I continue to like Murderbot, Miki is adorably annoying, and the mental contortions that Murderbot goes though in order to manage what Miki learns is fascinating. The worldbuilding is gradually accruing as the series continues and I like this style.

It's best to think of this series, in terms of structure, like episodes of a tv show (perhaps one of the serials Murderbot loves so much). It builds on the details of the previous book, and uses the information from it, but there isn't room for fluff. That creates this dynamic where the plot is very self-contained, but some bits of worldbuilding don't get explained again if they were explained before, since there just isn't room to go over stuff that was already covered in detail in a previous book. It doesn't quite wrap up anything from the previous book, though it is now clear that Murderbot has a quest and a goal that its pursuing as the series continues. The main storyline starts here and wasn't present previously, except for the connecting thread that Murderbot was somewhere at the end of the last book and now needs to go somewhere else for its next objective. A pretty important thing is introduced and resolved within ROGUE PROTOCOL. It's not the last book, and Murderbot is poised to continue its quest in the next volume. The main character is the same, and its narrative voice is consistent. Because of the episodic nature of the series, most of this book would make sense if someone picked it up at random without knowing about the series, though there are definitely some terms that don't get re-explained and would have to be inferred from context.

This was great and I'm ready for the next one.

Eduardo Santiago reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Review of 'Rogue Protocol' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Still enjoying the series, but a little less so. This one was more action than introspection, more shooting than listening. Still the same overall themes: the quest to fight injustice; joining forces with a team of humans who just so happen to be intelligent and professional and moral and decent; having an adventure with more than its fair share of improbable successes and narrow escapes. There was a promising storyline regarding machine consciousness and bot-human relationships, but it never really went anywhere satisfying.

Even so, Wells still draws me in. There's still good wry humor, insight, tenderness, and a story worth following. I've already started reading the next one.

Kathrin Passig reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Review of 'Rogue Protocol' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Alles wie bei den ersten zwei Bänden. Vielleicht noch ein bisschen besser. Der Umgang mit Genderangelegenheiten gefällt mir auch gut, erst viele Seiten nach der Einführung von Figuren stellt sich raus, wie jetzt, Moment, das sind Frauen? Dann muss ich noch mal zurück und rausfinden, ob ich nur unaufmerksam gelesen habe oder ob es wirklich nicht erwähnt wurde. (Es wurde wirklich nicht erwähnt.)

Jason Molenda reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Review of 'Rogue Protocol' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Another murderbot book. I feel like we're in a loop here. I miss ART. I like seeing another group of humans led by an intelligent and super competent woman. Murderbot continues to avoid human contact and interactions, prefers to be left alone with its tv shows. Is the cleverest bot on the station, able to outwit all its opponents and prevail against impossible odds.

I mean at this point, this series seems like it it's just pandering to teenage boys. I had a lot of hopes for murderbot to grow, to investigate the traumatic event that led it to override its governor module. But we're getting more of the same. I'm losing interest and keeping reading them only because the books are short. If you want to read a book of murderbot going it alone and kicking butt and taking names, boy howdy, these are the books for you.