Writing Science Fiction with Martha Wells, author of NETWORK EFFECT
In this episode, I’m excited to welcome Martha Wells, author of THE MURDERBOT DIARIES. This award-winning science fiction series features the introverted, cynical, and frequently hilarious security robot that thinks privately of itself as MurderBot. It’s a half-machine, half-organic construct, corporate owned and rented out to space-exploring organizations.
There’re plenty of SecUnit’s just like it, except MurderBot hacked its systems to allow greater autonomy — which mostly consists of slacking on the job and downloading as much serial entertainment as it can stream.
When its latest clients, a scientific research team exploring a distant planet, find themselves in danger after a neighboring mission group go dark, MurderBot must exploit all its unique talents and perspectives to defend them. Which risks revealing to its human crew that it’s broken free of its corporate limitations, as well as an unpleasant history that inspired its threatening moniker.
THE MURDERBOT DIARIES include 4 novellas — ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY — and a brand new, full-length novel called NETWORK EFFECT, which is available now from Tor.Com publishing.
Buy NETWORK EFFECT at:
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Listen to this interview on YouTube
About Martha Wells
Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including The Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), the Ile-Rien series (including The Death of the Necromancer) as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, media tie-ins (for Star Wars and Stargate: Atlantis), and non-fiction.
Her most recent fantasy novel is The Harbors of the Sun, the final novel in The Books of the Raksura series. She has a new series, The Murderbot Diaries, published by Tor.com. She was also the lead writer for the story team of Magic: the Gathering’s Dominaria expansion in 2018.
She has won a Nebula Award, two Hugo Awards, an ALA/YALSA Alex Award, two Locus Awards, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the BSFA Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. Her books have been published in sixteen languages.
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About NETWORK EFFECT
The first full-length novel in Martha Wells’ New York Times and USA Today bestselling Murderbot Diaries series.
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Drastic action it is, then.
