Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

 

Series

The Murderbot Diaries #6 

Story

Murderbot has to help solve a mystery. I mean they all have been mysteries of one sort or another, but this feels more like a who-dunnit. There is a debate in my house as to where this falls in the timeline, if it comes before Network Effect or after. I maintain that it is after, but there are possible points that might need a bit more review.

Concepts

Persistent perceptions: If a sec unit isn’t controlled by a governor, it must be a dangerous rogue, even if it is saving you. How can stereotypes get so ingrained? If most of your kind is never seen, or only seen when tightly controlled, and depicted when uncontrolled as unseeing killers of everything...

In a universe full of humans, convincing them one by one is really slow, especially if you don’t care enough to try.

Bots/Constructs/Humans circle or triangle of distrust. The relation between humans and bots seems to be well-defined, though there is still a spectrum of human thought towards bots. Constructs are the wildcard. They don’t really exist outside of company property so most people don’t see them outside of context.

Constructs only trust bots so far, but more because they are like slaves or pets, but not in Preservation space. There are a few facets that are certainly explored in this story.

One reason that this story may be out of order is because it really doesn’t deal with any other characters that we’ve had more than passing interaction with. Of course when SecUnit was on its own, it was dealing with new different people in terms of its… trusted adult. This feels much more like this than Network Effect did.

On the other hand this may be bringing some “newer” characters up to speed before they become critical in the story.

Recommendation

I love everything about the size of these novellas, except that I blow through them in way too short a time. Nothing against authors who write tomes, but reading this in less than three sittings often means that I am fully engaged and remember what happened, well, not too long ago.

Also, get it at a library, otherwise the price is a bit steep for a novella. I paid for it because I knew I would like it, yeah, yeah, how do I really know? Or maybe I am getting old and seeing the lower prices on much larger books from the past is hard not to compare. That must be it.

Network Effect by Martha Wells

 Series

The Murderbot Diaries #5

Story

Coming home from a mostly uneventful (less casualties than normal) survey, our hero (okay, not really a hero, it just wants to be left alone)  gets construct-napped by an old associate. This is quite a bit more of Murderbot in a single novel, not just novella length. 

Concepts

Duty vs caring: One of SecUnit’s responsibilities becomes more like a relationship, although there might even be a line about how icky another relationship feels when described. The story really explores the depth of self-deception of trying to not care and just carry out its duty.

Sacrifice: This is a huge topic outside of this book that it often seems people have a really hard time accepting in their own lives. What if you were built to be expendable to some degree? How selflessly would you act?

Unknown Alien Tech: Yep, a bit of a MacGuffin, but Wells has been building this up in her other books in this series, so it is not really a surprise that she uses it here to put constraints on the story.

Abandoned Colonies: I think this is an interesting look into the past as well as a look at current and future enterprises. While today’s enterprises don’t usually end up with stranded colonists, this certainly happened in the past, and may happen again when we are able to reach planets, but not too easily. When an enterprise is no longer profitable, how does it affect the people who are forced to live with the consequences?

This could be translated to today’s companies when they go bankrupt or leave a location. Many in the recent past have left pollution, a large populace of unemployed, and a sterling reputation. On the one hand a company fully exploiting a resource, however you want to interpret “exploiting,” is making money and is active in the location they exist. But a company that is gone is not. Maybe there are ways of extracting reparations from successive entities, but it is a much different story.

Recommendation

If you have made it this far in the series (yet again), starting with #1 and all the rest, then this is a must read. There are some interesting questions that I have mentioned above as well as the continued witty banter that makes my introverted heart just want to sing, though not in front of a crowd please.

This isn’t just a longer book that takes the same size outline as the novellas and strings it out. It is a novel in it’s own right. I do like the novella length, but I am also quite happy with how this book turned out. I have read #6, but I have to say that I hope she continues with the series. Maybe there will be conclusions, maybe it will spiral into unknown episodic space. I hope for the former.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

 

Series

The Murderbot Diaries #4

Story

Murderbot is on its way home (Or at least less hostile?) but finds out Mensah has been taken hostage. It’s already delivering data that could be used to tear down the evil corporation, but should Murderbot really care what happens or happened?

Concepts

Growth and Lapses: The amount of growth over the course of four novellas is possibly more than anybody could expect from anyone, but starting with a hugely blank slate and thousands of hours of serials bring into question just what a construct, specifically this SecUnit is. Of course we can’t quite move forward smoothly, and there are some definite hankerings to actually go rogue.

Increased capacity, less reliance: I suspect that there is more to the actual processing power mentioned, but I have to say, even without the speculation, that Murderbot is built to kill, and do it well, so yes there are violent scenes. However, the amount of restraint and alternate methods are quite interesting as well as making this a more complex story than skylark.

Deal with the unfair: If the enemy throws an unbeatable, but highly illegal, opponent your way, there probably won’t be enough time to complain to the authorities. There are quite a few instances of foreshadowing for this event, which brings into question just how well this series of novellas was planned out. Could this have been released as fewer books?

It is interesting how the technology aspect is very important to the telling of the story, but that it becomes a tool to tell it rather than being a major player. I think similar stories could be told with different or lacking tech, but it seems that they would need to rely on some form of magic in order to do so.

Recommendation

I mean really, if you are this far in the series it would be silly to stop now. But don’t just read it because you are this far, read it because you are invested in Murderbot’s humanity freedom as a being. It just happens to be well built to help its “friends.” Also tech snark, yes!

Not Dead Again

Well another hiatus from writing on the blog. I haven’t died, but it was certainly an interesting period of my life. I no longer work at Macaulay Library, that was a weird re-org that seems to be still happening to others as well with less than forthcoming tactics. It still makes me rather upset.

In good news I found a company that was happy to hire me and pay me to be a Senior Software Engineer in August. It is still weird to be a senior anything, but I have found that I do have knowledge that others don’t, though sometimes literally only minutes before they ask. I still have plenty to learn. Quadrant Biosciences is a small startup so there is plenty to do in terms of new software to support the research side of the company. Plenty of challenges left and I hope I am up to them.

I have been reading, as this blog was starting to become a review blog, I really need to start that up. In November I attempted to start another novel for nanowrimo, but only got 15k words in. It is an exploration of a few ideas such as portal technology that may lead to a few of my writings several years ago that I could connect into a universe.

Running last year was pretty good. It was also probably one of the reasons I stayed sane during the false accusations at the Lab. I trained for a Half Marathon and ended up running it in 2:07. There is a possibility of running it again this year, but I am not entirely sure. I am definitely planning on signing up for one somewhere. I also managed to run a 5k in less than 25 minutes, and I plan to sign up for a few more this year to run quite a bit faster. We’ll see.

I am going to see if I can start reviewing sci-fi or other books again, as well as see where my episodes tailed-off. I might also start posting observations about tech, but that might be rather boring for the few readers that actually see this.

Also I realized that with my sporadic writing that continuing to serve ads that may have nothing to do with my content, my interests, or any of my reader's interests that I turned them off. However, if you use the Brave browser you can certainly add me to your sites that you contribute to.

The Skylark of Space by E.E. Smith

Series

Skylark #1

Story

With inklings of space travel in the future this is a series of adventures starting solidly on the Earth that take varying amounts of time on alien worlds afterward. That is not a sales pitch.

Semi- Main Character Richard Seaton accidentally discovers how to “decompose” copper into pure energy. Through some dumb-luck and some governmental machinations that probably wouldn’t have worked back in 1928 much less these days, Seaton is able to liberate the patent, or plans, from the governmental laboratory clutches and starts to really expand the idea in some related ways balanced with the “object compasses.”

Of course a dark, handsome and evil adversary wants nothing more than to utterly control the idea and goes about stealing it. Plans go awry and several hundred light years away and he and his captives need to be rescued. Nicks of time abound and through more dumb luck and a liberal application of chemistry they make it back to Earth.

Concepts

The white male chemist as the Ubermensch: Yeah, is as strong as an ox and can shoot, do dastardly amounts of chemistry, fly brand-new-designed-and-built objects under many gravities, and still woo the love of his life. In fact it is taken so far as an ultra-Darwinian alien culture declaring that he, his fiancee, his friend, and his friend’s wife to be are all just one step away from being perfect. Barf.

I do like a story about nerd “empowerment” but this is more like a power-trip fantasy. It is actually quite hard to get through some sections of the book that might have been gripping to a younger me, or to whole herds of young white males in the past. I think this is exactly what people think of when they are stereotyping science fiction.

While the casual racism sprinkled throughout is unfortunately straightforward cultural, the outright suggestion that white people, such as myself, are ultimately superior, even outwitting a much more “advanced” being is super cringeworthy.

Atomic power: This is actually somewhat interesting. The whole concept behind the book relies on an almost antimatter-like annihilation of copper to produce energy. Since the book was published in 1928, it sits between Einstein’s E=mc^2 and true atomic power. Doc tries to get the reader to understand just how powerful atomic energy could be, but of course is a bit off and very blase about the possibility of radioactivity.

Matter Attractor: I like how this has become a staple in quite a few science fiction media, and beyond just trying to use it in a different way basically hasn’t changed all that much in trying to describe how it works.

The Matter Compasses: Oh the MacGuffins have arrived. Have you accidentally lost your planet while traveling hundreds of light years? Well not to worry: a matter compass attuned to Earth can guide you back! While it isn’t totally out of the realm of the “spooky action at a distance” or quantum entanglement, it is still used with almost a practiced carelessness in the story in order to make the wild flights of fancy even close to possible.

Recommendation

At one point, right before the one-step-below-god scene I was thinking of trying to retell this tale with a bent toward advancing concepts, making characters more believable, and actually creating a story rather than a series of shallow episodes. I could take two approaches: Write an outline from memory, highlight important points that would tie back to the original story and then write a new story, something like Scalzi might have done.

Or reread the book and take careful notes, fill out technology with more modern understanding, etc. But this I think would be too hard. There is too much power fantasy edging into romance. Sure characters have crises, but generally anything more than the overarching return to Earth plot is literally resolved in a paragraph or two. I think I would have to tear this apart much farther than my abilities would allow at this point.

I would not recommend this book beyond getting a good taste of what a science fiction fueled power trip was like in 1928. Why did I write such a long review?

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Series

Murderbot Diaries #3

Story

Murderbot does some investigating and ends up shadowing a team doing a parallel investigation. Surprising issues make completing their two different tracks very difficult.

Concepts

Pay it Forward: This definitely builds off of the interactions that Murderbot had in the previous book. In fact it is hinted how Murderbot would have carried out its actions if it hadn’t had the experience in the last book. While it isn’t very subtle having read the books as close to back-to-back as I could have checking them out from the library, I think it is a well illustrated lesson that really builds the humanity, or at least independence from being “just a killing machine” that Murderbot often reminds us that SecUnits are.

Acceptance is what you make it: Anybody can accept anything. It doesn’t make it a good acceptance, and sometimes it doesn’t mean it’s even a done deal. However, Murderbot is slowly coming to the realization and acceptance that, while it seemingly free, that it wants to really be free and what that might even mean. What are the actions it will have to execute in order for it to “save” itself and its chances?

Bots Fleshed Out: Bots are really maligned by Murderbot, that is to say, fully-inorganic bots. It’s like they are a separate species. And they are, but if humans made them and trained them… I think this gets to humans as creators. Obviously whoever made a construct like the SecUnits wasn’t going for kindness or aesthetics, but some perfect, twisted entity. Bots seem to also be very specifically built, but when Murderbot runs across one that isn’t, it becomes apparent that there are deep seated biases that have to be inspected.

Recommendation

Again, this series is excellent. I would suggest that you read from the beginning with caveats of course. These novellas include Artificial Condition #2 which is nominated for a Hugo for best novella this year. I am looking forward to reading and reviewing #4, and have some trepidation for the novel that follows.

These have been quite successful as a series of novellas, what is the pressure or reasons that led to #5 being a full novel? As an unpublished writer my most optimistic guess would be that the universe has really just bloomed for Wells, but I have to balance that with the possibility of publisher pressure. If it’s doing so well, why don’t you write a real book?

Either way, I look forward to reading more about Murderbot’s adventures.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Series

The Murderbot Diaries #2

Story

Our “hero” is “emancipated,” sort of, but if anybody recognizes it as a SecUnit there will be very deadly trouble. In order to delve into its past Murderbot must attach itself to a group of humans and do what it’s designed to do, grudgingly: protect clients. And then there is ART, the BFF (Big friendly freighter, my own acronym that might have more than two meanings.)

Again, as a novella this could stand on its own, but it is made richer with the universe and character building of #1. This is either a peek into the soul of Wells as an author who herself would rather curl up away from the universe and binge-watch sci-fi show episodes until the universe ends, or a very nuanced commentary that may hit a little too close to home for a large group of nerds out there that may or may not include myself.

I’ve also been reading books spanning sociology, behavioral economics, and get-better-at-what-you-are-doing books. The fact that I see potential commentary in Muderbot’s caricature pointing at the trend of our society really sliding away from being able to interact with other people might only be because I have recently been told that I am too abrasive. Although I don’t have the fear that people will find out that I have beam weapons embedded in my arms, it could feel much easier to have a conversation with someone while watching myself from a security camera, get those stupid facial ticks smoothed out that might give away my level of frustration.

Or not. Maybe I need to get back into acting, or at least take acting lessons, as my disgust with people doing bad jobs is way more obvious than the SecUnit’s scary secret.

Concepts

While the previous concepts are still on display and certainly explored to some extent, this story certainly takes more advantage of them in order to really bring forward other concepts.

Growth or change: Our friendly SecUnit is immune, it will always be selfish since it has hacked it’s governor module, it doesn’t need to rely on or help anyone. It isn’t quite that stark, but there is a somewhat major shift starting to happen.

Acceptance: The Murderbot was built to kill, and while it accepted that when it was working for the company, it purposely removed itself from those situations, not immediately hiring itself out. It just wants to watch its episodes.

Major One Up: I think this is super important, having just read the third book, to have this realization. It certainly highlight the character growth later.

Recommendation

Good sci-fi with decent background tech and a very strong central character, maybe it’s just because I want to be able to write such great characters. The subtlety of the commentary is great, whether or not it’s intended, hidden behind a slowly cracking mask! If you haven’t read the previous review, take those caveats with this review, but otherwise read this right after you read #1.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Series

The Murderbot Diaries #1

Story

Teaser: A “Construct” (half human(?), half robot) is supposed to be guarding an expedition on a planet when a neighboring expedition stops communicating. As they are trying to figure out what has happened they are also “attacked.” Good thing the Sec Unit (Security Unit) hacked its own governor module.

This is novella, so it is shorter than a novel, and told quite well. While there has to be some exposition for the self-styled Murderbot to give some background, it gets to the story quickly. Having read #2 already I am torn as to whether this novella stands on its own. If I didn’t know about the others than I would say that it does, but knowing about the others I would say it doesn’t, but only in the best way.

The best way means that even though the story wraps up quickly I want to read more about the character and this universe. While the tone is dark it is dark satire with some quite hilarious lines that somehow are relatable from a character that is almost not human at all.

Concepts

In general the story takes precedence over the technology, although there are important technological issues that contribute to the story line. The world-building doesn’t dwell to much on any one concept.

Constructs: While the main character is certainly some semblance of sentient, it becomes clear that the organic/robot hybrids are considered non-human by the humans in most cases. This is obviously a very important topic as the main character struggles with caring and not caring about its possible equivalence.

The Feed: In some ways it might be a MacGuffin, in other ways it is just a souped up internet that strains the boundaries of what a software engineer like myself might think is possible. It might be possible, but is really used as an important plot device.

Finding Old Alien Artifacts: I think this is the most interesting and least described idea, maybe an actual MacGuffin, but my speculation is that it has something to do with the constructs.

Recommendation

While I can’t give it a straight, go-read-it-now recommendation for everyone, I would say that a audience with the maturity to not dwell on the language should certainly pick it up. The use of language certainly fits the character quite well and I don’t know if it could be told as well without it.

The exploration of concepts certainly makes this worth a read from the point of view that it touches on several past and modern issues. And as an aspiring writer I find reading an interesting sci fi novella such as this to be quite inspiring.

Conflicted Progress

Read these two articles:

• How To Be So Disciplined It'll Look Like You Have Superpowers
• Mental Model Winner Take All

How can these two exist at the same time? One must cancel out the other like antimatter/matter annihilation. Or can they both be right?

Interestingly, I think both are possible, though the “Superpowers” article is mainly writing from the viewpoint of survivorship bias. That is the author is saying that because they did it, so can you, and because you are reading it then they succeeded wildly by following their own rules.

The Farnam Street Blog looks at several cases of Winner Takes All, but doesn’t tell you how to overcome that, except maybe buying several thousand copies of your own book. Does it cancel out the rule-following concept in the more positive article? No, but I think it tempers it quite a bit.

When it comes down to it: We can all improve, maybe even the top performers, but really the only person that would have thought we have superpowers is our former self. Let me frame it with the Recency Effect.

Let’s say that you are a hotdog eating contestant and you can eat ten hotdogs in a minute. You are so good that you have sponsorships and tour the country. Then someone comes along and introduces a new technique and is able to eat one hundred hotdogs in a minute. At the behest of your sponsor you learn the technique and are able to eat one hundred plus one hotdogs, reclaiming your crown.

Being at the top and then reclaiming the top certainly looks like superpowers to folks lower in the pecking order, but even the lightweight packing away only eighty per contest would scoff at your old record of ten due to your new achievement. You might appreciate the difference, but you only really have your initial reaction to gauge just how monumental a jump that is.

All’s good in hotdog-land, but what about starting from the bottom like removing a bad habit? Initially people may notice if it is an obvious habit, but soon it will be old history. Good changes are like a differential for people noticing and hopefully a integral in improving life. That is: people will only really notice as the change is happening, or if asymptotic like a haircut, right after, but then that will be the new normal. But maintaining a good habit like brushing your teeth might literally improve your life expectancy, and no one runs away from conversations anymore.

Self-set rules will only get you so far in becoming the best, the rest is how they relate to your goals, but I think they are a huge step in getting you away from the worst. Rule-following has another name: discipline.

Ultimate

I will not complain about my proposal being failed just to get my attention, I will not. I certainly need to fix it even though it is better than most of the ones that I read and got some useless feedback about how it was better than the reviewers’.

Alright, but I do need to complain, you know, righteous indignation and all of that. This week I received a credit card promotion from my own bank. Probably because I still have a cash-back card and they are tired of giving me barely a penny on a dollar. They want to transition me to a card that is “better.” Great, but that is only a small grievance, the real sticker is the copy text at the top of the promotion: “Use your Bank-name-here credit card to help pay down debt.”

Um, no. A credit card is not used to pay down debt. A credit card is used to accumulate debt.

Let’s get biblical for a second, debt or assurance of debt is a chain around your neck that can be yanked by the person that is owed. Go check out Financial Peace University. Although we don’t ascribe to the entire system described by FPU it is certainly closer to what we practice than not. Just average credit card debt is a bit disturbing. Maybe we should look at getting rid of it. With only a house to pay for at the moment it is sort of silly to have a monthly accumulation as well. Unfortunately for the simplicity of not racking up debt to be paid off monthly debit cards are not as well protected as credit cards, hmmm…

I started and finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline so here’s a review. Overall: Not a terrible story, but talk about IP nightmare for the upcoming movie. I am a geek, nerd, whatever, but the level of 80s pop-culture was way beyond my ability to cope, even recognizing 60-80% of it. But here is where it is ultimate:

The disconnectedness from the real world was certainly surreal, but then was conveniently forgotten at the end. There are so many points in the story where it could be an interesting delve into futurism or even keeping self-consistent and then it just throws in an 80s reference or several pages of exposition and then brings us back to the moment reeling. Some moments stand out in my mind, but maybe because they are so few. On top of that all the victories are essentially hollow, there is existential crisis throughout, but it doesn’t seem to affect any performance on challenges.

Would I suggest you read it? Was it a waste of time? Meh on both counts. If you are a super fan of the 80s then this book was written for you, but it wasn’t even a waste for me because I can see what not to do in my writing.

How about that Black Panther movie? It was pretty good, I wouldn’t jump straight to the best in the Marvel universe, but only because it is really hard to compare all of them side-by-side. That said, it did talk about some issues that translucent-skinned individuals like me don’t often think about. Well done, well told, worth seeing.