---
title: "Murderbot Series by Martha Wells"
description: "Summary: Now that the main characters have been introduced, stories can be told.  I needed something to listen to as I was doing some mindless work and the first two books in this series were..."
url: https://bookwi.se/murderbot-series-by-martha-wells/
date: 2026-07-25
modified: 2026-07-25
author: "Adam Shields"
categories: ["Book Reviews"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Murderbot Series by Martha Wells

[![Murderbot series by Martha Wells](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/36153880-199x300.jpg)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK8SNWY/)**Summary: Now that the main characters have been introduced, stories can be told. **

I needed something to listen to as I was doing some mindless work and the [first two books in this series](https://bookwi.se/all-systems-red/) were available to listen to from my library. The series starts out in the novella length (about 150 pages each) before getting a bit longer in the later books.

As a series that starts with novellas, each of the early books does build and feel like “chapters” of a larger story.

I won’t reveal too much about the books, but the first book introduces “Murderbot” the Artificial Intelligence in a part robot, part humanoid body which is described as a “construct”. As a construct, “Murderbot”, a security unit primarily working to protect human exploration or mining projects, is deemed expendable. The first two books describe how it freed itself from its software restrictions and reveal that it was actually free to do what it wants to the humans that it needed to save.

And then it escape from the planet and went on the run from the corporation that own it, all the while trying to investigate its own history and what had been wiped from its memory. These middle books (2 to 4) feels like a 1970 or 80s wandering hero tv show. The hero is on a quest, but along the way helps people who are in need of help.

By the fifth book is the only book that is a full length novel and it felt a little bit too long to for the series, but it also shifted the feel of the series to be more group novel. Murderbot is an anti-social character who would much rather watch shows instead of save humans. (Humans are gross.) But it is slowly building a community around it. The sixth book is a one off mystery on his “family’s” home world. While the seventh is really an immediate follow up to the fifth book.

I was reading this as I read [The God Text](https://bookwi.se/the-god-test/), about the perils and promises of AI, and it was interesting to read a science fiction series about an AI that had become sentient. (This is a common theme in scifi and the [Ancillary Justice](https://bookwi.se/ancillary-justice/) is another example of sentient AI which becomes independent of human control.) Unlike some robot stories which are centered on the robot becoming more human, Murderbot isn’t particularly interested in becoming more human. Although there is an ongoing theme of trauma and emotional health that does run through the series.