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Murderbot giveaway!
Apr. 20th, 2020 05:07 pmIn honor of the upcoming release of Network Effect, the first novel in Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, Tor is giving away the four Murderbot prequel novellas as free ebooks, one a day between now and April 23rd!
Unfortunately and deplorably, this offer is only extended to people in the US or Canada, and you have to provide an email address. But for anyone who can take advantage of it, I wanted to spread the word!
But who exactly is Murderbot, you might be wondering? A partly biological android with massive social anxiety, a great love of downloaded serials, no interest in human genders[1], and more of a distaste for murder than the name might suggest:
In the interest of full disclosure, I love this series tremendously. The world it takes place in is arguably pretty grim -- Murderbot has no legal rights, there's violence and death aplenty, the evils of capitalism are fully in evidence, and I feel like there are a couple of other content warnings I'm forgetting, especially for the second novella; torture and implied sexual assault, maybe? But Murderbot is such a great narrator, perpetually snarky and fed up and wanting to find somewhere to just hole up and binge watch a series or two, but with a treacherously compassionate heart lurking underneath. If you don't mind the dystopian setting, then I recommend the series wholeheartedly!
1. It's probably worth mentioning both that Murderbot seems to favor the pronoun "it" for AIs, and that although Murderbot is the most prominent nonbinary character in the books, it isn't the only one -- there's also a human character whose gender is matter-of-factly given as tercera ("third"), who uses te/ter pronouns. (back)
Unfortunately and deplorably, this offer is only extended to people in the US or Canada, and you have to provide an email address. But for anyone who can take advantage of it, I wanted to spread the word!
But who exactly is Murderbot, you might be wondering? A partly biological android with massive social anxiety, a great love of downloaded serials, no interest in human genders[1], and more of a distaste for murder than the name might suggest:
I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
I was also still doing my job, on a new contract, and hoping Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj finished their survey soon so we could get back to the habitat and I could watch episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
In the interest of full disclosure, I love this series tremendously. The world it takes place in is arguably pretty grim -- Murderbot has no legal rights, there's violence and death aplenty, the evils of capitalism are fully in evidence, and I feel like there are a couple of other content warnings I'm forgetting, especially for the second novella; torture and implied sexual assault, maybe? But Murderbot is such a great narrator, perpetually snarky and fed up and wanting to find somewhere to just hole up and binge watch a series or two, but with a treacherously compassionate heart lurking underneath. If you don't mind the dystopian setting, then I recommend the series wholeheartedly!
1. It's probably worth mentioning both that Murderbot seems to favor the pronoun "it" for AIs, and that although Murderbot is the most prominent nonbinary character in the books, it isn't the only one -- there's also a human character whose gender is matter-of-factly given as tercera ("third"), who uses te/ter pronouns. (back)
