Murderbot

A woman wrote it, and the majority of the point of the book is that humans are retarded and are always trying to get themselves killed while Murderbot has to try to save them, which is sort of an underlying morality for him since he doesn't have to follow orders anymore but still tries to protect them.

I haven't seen today's episode, but I'm enjoying the show. They veered away from the book plot a bit, but the resolution will likely be similar. The ending in the book for the expedition is super super super abrupt, like a few sentences, and is honestly very jarring. But the real story is always about SecUnit, so that takes a little bit longer.

I dunno, I'm rereading them right now, and aside from being pretty short (often under 200 pages), I enjoy them a lot even though almost every human is woke, annoying, and retarded. They are obviously doing a good job of portraying exactly that in the show. The only part they might be lacking is in how much SecUnit talks shit about them for being all of those things.

Void said:

A woman wrote it, and the majority of the point of the book is that humans are retarded and are always trying to get themselves killed while Murderbot has to try to save them, which is sort of an underlying morality for him since he doesn't have to follow orders anymore but still tries to protect them.

I haven't seen today's episode, but I'm enjoying the show. They veered away from the book plot a bit, but the resolution will likely be similar. The ending in the book for the expedition is super super super abrupt, like a few sentences, and is honestly very jarring. But the real story is always about SecUnit, so that takes a little bit longer.

I dunno, I'm rereading them right now, and aside from being pretty short (often under 200 pages), I enjoy them a lot even though almost every human is woke, annoying, and retarded. They are obviously doing a good job of portraying exactly that in the show. The only part they might be lacking is in how much SecUnit talks shit about them for being all of those things.

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Yeah the whole thing seems like satire. The hippy humans are idiots and constantly trying to kill themselves. Meanwhile Murderbot is more like a saveabot.

Chanur said:

Yeah the whole thing seems like satire. The hippy humans are idiots and constantly trying to kill themselves. Meanwhile Murderbot is more like a saveabot.

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Later in the books there are more humans that have throuples and weird pronouns and shit (te, tem, or something like that), and SecUnit doesn't get it but uses the correct pronouns, but then those same people do stupid human shit and SecUnit has to save them all the same and metaphorically rolls his eyes the entire time, so I view it as satire as well. Sure, maybe the author is super woke too (I have no idea, as it could easily be satire as mentioned), but she's not the terrible kind where all woke people can do no wrong and are the heroes of the story. Literally every human is treated the same (ie, they are retarded), just some of them have colored hair and stupid pronouns and dumb sex practices. To me that makes all the difference, because it is like having a female protagonist that has faults and setbacks and does stupid shit vs. the Captain Marvel type that never does anything wrong or even slightly indicating she's not a girl boss.

Seriously, the whole point of Murderbot is that humans are stupid and make SecUnit anxious and feel icky, but for some reason he still tries to help them when he could be watching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon somewhere away from all humans instead. Them being hippy dipshits just makes it funnier.

Void said:

Later in the books there are more humans that have throuples and weird pronouns and shit (te, tem, or something like that), and SecUnit doesn't get it but uses the correct pronouns, but then those same people do stupid human shit and SecUnit has to save them all the same and metaphorically rolls his eyes the entire time, so I view it as satire as well. Sure, maybe the author is super woke too (I have no idea, as it could easily be satire as mentioned), but she's not the terrible kind where all woke people can do no wrong and are the heroes of the story. Literally every human is treated the same (ie, they are retarded), just some of them have colored hair and stupid pronouns and dumb sex practices. To me that makes all the difference, because it is like having a female protagonist that has faults and setbacks and does stupid shit vs. the Captain Marvel type that never does anything wrong or even slightly indicating she's not a girl boss.

Seriously, the whole point of Murderbot is that humans are stupid and make SecUnit anxious and feel icky, but for some reason he still tries to help them when he could be watching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon somewhere away from all humans instead. Them being hippy dipshits just makes it funnier.

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I do like how they show the Throuple doesn't work. He's into the short haired dyke and she's only into the other woman. The other woman is into the dude though. The humans are just a shit show. Which is exactly what I would expect from a hippy commune space society. It's amusing to me at least. I really think it has to be satire otherwise it's one of the most unintentionally funny books/shows.

Void said:

Later in the books there are more humans that have throuples and weird pronouns and shit (te, tem, or something like that), and SecUnit doesn't get it but uses the correct pronouns, but then those same people do stupid human shit and SecUnit has to save them all the same and metaphorically rolls his eyes the entire time, so I view it as satire as well. Sure, maybe the author is super woke too (I have no idea, as it could easily be satire as mentioned), but she's not the terrible kind where all woke people can do no wrong and are the heroes of the story. Literally every human is treated the same (ie, they are retarded), just some of them have colored hair and stupid pronouns and dumb sex practices. To me that makes all the difference, because it is like having a female protagonist that has faults and setbacks and does stupid shit vs. the Captain Marvel type that never does anything wrong or even slightly indicating she's not a girl boss.

Seriously, the whole point of Murderbot is that humans are stupid and make SecUnit anxious and feel icky, but for some reason he still tries to help them when he could be watching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon somewhere away from all humans instead. Them being hippy dipshits just makes it funnier.

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Oh she’s definitely pretty blue hair crazy. In her commencement speech I posted a while back here or in the Book House she talks about how Murderbot is some allegory for body dysmorphia and trans ideas, and struggling with that identity, yadda yadda. But the dumb thing is that it almost comes off like an afterthought similar to Rowling retconning some Harry Potter stuff just to score points. I think Martha Wells just caught fire suddenly with Murderbot after trying very hard for a couple decades, and started saying “the right” things. It was Texas A&M if I remember, where she graduated. She talked about not even knowing anyone knew who she was until she went to the library at A&M years later and saw one of her books featured there. That’s all from memory and it has been a while since reading it.

I’ve also read her Witch King book 1 that also includes some “body switching” main character ambiguity.

Getting past all that, it doesn’t really matter to me. The books and characters, SecUnit specifically, are open enough that you coupld imprint or relate to anyone of the totally normal human emotions or issues that everyone faces. I never picked up on ANY ideological stuff in the books even a whiff because it was too fun hearing SecUnit bitch and moan about how stupid humans are and him murderlate people. Plus, like I think we said earlier, it is mid/far future enough that all the strange thrupple whatever weirdo humans exist makes sense. Expanse did it and every other SciFi does to an extent. Nothing is like “oh we’re all fags bc of the great tag uprising of 2134 where King Fagimus XI overthrew the evil CIS white establishment!”

Back on topic to the show. I’ve been pretty disappointed overall and very critical. In my opinion is suffers immensely from this 20-minute episode format. It kills any momentum the setups have and doesn’t allow for any prolonged interaction between SecUnit and / or between any characters. Every week is a reset and the scenes start over and move towards whatever 20-minute end goal there is.

The last episode was irritating because of the constant need of show runners to change massive parts of an established story to fit a TV narrative and schedule. The whole flash scene with Gurathin and Mensah would be completely unnecessary in book format, but in the show they need this 5-minute heavy exposition directly illustrating to viewers just who Mensah is and how good of a person she is. The book doesn’t need that bc relationships develop over pages. It is way less heavy handed and really helps you get to know what type of leader she is and why Murderbot feels such a connection. Which is starting to make sense in the show, but again required major structural changes to the plot and sidelined current events in an already limited time window to show things.

This is about the only thing other than Guns Forum I bother typing long posts about lol. I really do hope the show doesn’t get canceled and it finds its groove. There was an Easter egg last episode about a character that appears in book 2 that it’d be really fun to see on screen. And the plot with Murderbot, Alien artifacts, and rogue corporation stuff becomes more interesting.

We still watch, but it's now just fast-forwarding to murderbot parts because every other character is nails on a chalkboard. I had hoped the show would be about robot eric northman wrecking shit while hot chicks do sciencey stuff, but holy shit was I off.