Tag Archives: Tor

Review of “Murderbot Diaries Book 6: Fugitive Telemetry” (2021) by Martha Wells

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© James Pyles

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Last night I just finished book seven in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series called Fugitive Telemetry. The story is actually set between books five and six, but that doesn’t take anything away from the adventure.

SecUnit, otherwise known as “Murderbot,” is basically a cybernetic being, mostly machine with some organic parts. They (technically SecUnit has no gender but I always think of her as female for some reason) is a Security Unit designed to provide bodyguard and security protection for humans conducting dangerous off world activities. They are property and although capable of independent thought, are forbidden from independent action. There are consequences.

Our SecUnit managed to override their internal governor in the first book becoming an independent entity. Thanks to her former employers, who are from a very egalitarian space station orbiting a planet currently being terraformed, she (I keep saying “she”) has more rights than she knows what to do with.

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Book Review of John Scalzi’s Novel “The Collapsing Empire”

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Cover art for John Scalzi’s 2017 novel “The Collapsing Empire”

I recently downloaded a free copy of John Scalzi’s novel The Collapsing Empire from TOR.com. It was part of a promotion of the third novel in this series The Last Emperox being published later this month (as I write this).

Scalzi comes with a rather stellar reputation and background, having won two Hugos and been nominated for other awards, but the proof of an author is in the writing, not the rep (as least as far as I’m concerned), so I thought I’d give him a whirl.

But first, the kudos I gleaned from Amazon:

“John Scalzi is the most entertaining, accessible writer working in SF today.” —Joe Hill, author of The Fireman

“Fans of Game of Thrones and Dune will enjoy this bawdy, brutal, and brilliant political adventure” —Booklist on The Collapsing Empire

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A Few Freebies While Enduring COVID-19 Separation

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Cover art for the novel Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

With the public libraries closed and my book budget slashed to zero, I was worried I’d be hard strapped for reading material. Then I remembered that some weeks ago, I downloaded a free copy of Annalee Newitz’s science fiction novel Autonomous from Tor.com. So I revisited my kindle device and started consuming the book.

I’m about 60% through, and I can pretty much guarantee that Ms. Newitz is not going to like my review on Amazon. That said, I don’t actually regret reading her book (since it was free), but it again brings to mind how some forms of entertainment are well thought of (in certain prominent circles) and yet cannot seem to tell a good story.

Yesterday, I discovered John Scalzi’s Redshirts novel was also available as a free Tor download, so the MOBI file is now resting comfortably on my kindle. It won both the 2013 Hugo and Lotus awards for best science fiction novel, but given my current experience with “Autonomous,” as well as how I found N.K. Jemisin’s award winning book The Fifth Season, awards don’t always mean what you want them to mean.

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