Short Book Reviews: Rogue Robots and Sentient Spacecraft

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries), by Martha Wells (Tor)

I’m not sure what I can add to the comments of others about Martha Wells’s marvelous series of novellas about Murderbot, the security unit on a journey to humanity. This latest installment shows Murderbot posing as a human security consultant, coming into contact (and sometimes conflict) with military units and other automata, with humans both vile and admirable. I am reminded of a story I recently heard on NPR about how we humans tend to treat mechanical devices (even Roombas) as sentient. I suspect this benefits us more, through the practice of compassion, than it does our household appliances and automobiles. Slowly, Murderbot is learning to do the same.

I can’t wait for the next adventure!

The Spaceship Next Door, by Gene Doucette (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Three years ago, a spaceship landed in a sleepy Connecticut town called Sorrow Falls.

Despite being cordoned off by the US military and despite the concerted efforts of scientists and analysts, absolutely nothing has been learned about the ship, who made it, or why it is here. Well, not quite nothing: anyone attempting to approach the ship becomes obsessed with the pressing need to be somewhere else.

Just outside the boundaries of set up by the military, and encampment of RVs is populated by conspiracy theorists who use various kinds of equipment to observe the spaceship, and it is clear that everything they report is a product of their own imagination.

Annie Collins is about as normal a 16 year old girl as possible, considering that her mother is dying of cancer and her father is nowhere in sight. Annie has a gift for making friends, understanding people's motivations, accepting the weirdos conspiracy theorists in the RV camp, and pretty much knowing everything that's going on. So when a military analyst ineptly disguised as a reporter, arrives for yet another investigation of the spaceship, he hires Annie as his native guide. The adventure begins slowly but soon picks up steam when the spaceship starts turning locals and troops alike into zombies who go around asking “Are you her?”

The smoothly flowing prose style captures much of the charm of a small town filled with eccentric characters and a colorful if fictitious history. Annie herself is lovable in her complexity, her vulnerability, and her endless resourcefulness. A highly recommended read, full of inventiveness, humor, and surprising twists, and truly alien aliens.

The usual disclaimer: I received review copies of these books, but no one bribed me to say anything about them.