Book Review: Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

See my review of volume one here and volume two here.

Murderbot is back! Now that it is fairly certain that it did not massacre a bunch of people because of its own glitch, it heads for fringe space. There's a suspicious abandoned terraforming project by GrayCris, the villainous company from the first book. Maybe Murderbot can find some evidence of why they really left (was it another alien artifact retrieval with the terraforming as a cover story?) to bolster the case against GrayCris. When it arrives, Murderbot allies with another group of hapless humans. This group is from a company that wants to restart the terraforming project. The group includes a bot named Miki that's more of a pet than a useful contributor. Murderbot finds both the humans' and Miki's attitudes grating. But it needs to get on the terraforming platform to investigate so it wheedles its way into the group. Unfortunately, the group's human security detail may not be what they seem. Action and mayhem ensue.

This outing is a winner. The main character and the ongoing story move forward naturally and in interesting ways. Murderbot slowly develops more human characteristics as it sarcastically works its way through its own plan. That plan has to shift when surprises happen, a flexibility that serves Murderbot well. It's another good story and I am looking forward to the next one.

Highly recommended.