Pretty short with only about 160 pages. The story is enough to make me want to keep reading more from the series!
it's hard to pull off a sardonic robot protagonist, and I think this did it
From the plot alone, this novella would be a bit of perhaps cliche science fiction. What makes it both unique and compelling is that the story being told from the perspective of the "Murderbot" (hence The Murderbot Diaries), a cyborg generally treated by society as a piece of equipment.
Martha Wells's writing does a good job of showing Murderbot's personality, its particular anxieties, its relationships towards humans, and general attitudes towards life. Even if the plot is cliche, Murderbot as a character is the opposite.
A socially awkward, traumatized by PTSD, has executive dysfunction, and just wants to be free and watch entertainment streams ... Murderbot is very relatable.
