Rogue Protocol

The Murderbot Diaries is an award-winning science fiction series by American author Martha Wells. The installments in the series are All Systems Red (2017; novella), Artificial Condition (2018; novella), Rogue Protocol (2018; novella), Exit Strategy (2018; novella), Network Effect (2020; full-length novel), Fugitive Telemetry (2021; novella whose chronology takes place between Exit Strategy and Network Effect), and System Collapse (2023; full-length novel). Wells has also published three short stories in the same universe as the main Murderbot installments; two of these have different narrators than the central texts, which are all narrated by Murderbot itself.

The first four novellas follow a continuous narrative arc in which Murderbot decides to seek freedom from mega-corporation GrayCris, an organization that controls every aspect of life in the Corporation Rim, a series of planets where corporate and political control are essentially synonymous with one another. In All Systems Red, Murderbot works its last job under GrayCris’s control before escaping, encouraged by Dr. Mensah, someone from outside the Corporation Rim who believes that using AI constructs for labor is equivalent to enslavement.