That vast, astonishing, multiplicity of vision
April 12, 2024 5:28 PM Subscribe
“So when I started working on the story that turned into All Systems Red, I realized right away I wanted to write an AI that didn't want to be human…I was thinking a lot about what an AI would actually want, as opposed to what a human might think an AI would want…. I think it would want that connection to other systems, that vast, astonishing, multiplicity of vision.”—Martha Wells, from her keynote speech at the annual Jack Williamson Lecture at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico.
Goddamn I loved this. Thank you so much for posting, would’ve missed it otherwise and I had just kicked off another Murderbot reread last night coming out of a rough week. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the series; more than seven but I’m uncertain how many more.
It’s no coincidence the book I have reread most often in my life is Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Collection. The big black gold leaf Bible-looking edition containing the entire series, which I have read cover to cover 54 times but have long since defaulted to just opening at random since it’s mostly memorized at this point.
I didn’t realize Wells was unaware of being autistic until after writing All Systems Red. That’s hilarious - it’s one of the most ferociously critical takes on allistic society I’ve ever read, which is a huge part of the appeal.
Thanks again for the post.
posted by Ryvar at 5:58 PM on April 12 [25 favorites]
It’s no coincidence the book I have reread most often in my life is Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Collection. The big black gold leaf Bible-looking edition containing the entire series, which I have read cover to cover 54 times but have long since defaulted to just opening at random since it’s mostly memorized at this point.
I didn’t realize Wells was unaware of being autistic until after writing All Systems Red. That’s hilarious - it’s one of the most ferociously critical takes on allistic society I’ve ever read, which is a huge part of the appeal.
Thanks again for the post.
posted by Ryvar at 5:58 PM on April 12 [25 favorites]
I love this so much.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:08 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:08 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
There are a lot of people who viewed All Systems Red as a cute robot story. Which was very weird to me, since I thought I was writing a story about slavery and personhood and bodily autonomy. ... One of the major publication reviews for Artificial Condition wondered why Murderbot was so wary of humans considering they were all so nice to it.
I definitely got that facet of the series. But it's also true that Murderbot nevertheless somehow also does have an appealing personality - which is why so many humans are so nice to it.
a belief still hanging around that anything that's funny, no matter how bitter and ironic the humor is, can't convey a serious message.
I kind of know what she's talking about here because I get the impression that some of the snarky comments I've posted on Metafilter, that I specifically intended as pointed commentary on either the post's subject or attitudes about the subject being displayed in the thread, get dismissed as "oh, Greg_Ace is just doing his random silly drive-by thing again ha ha but seriously..." Not to give myself airs by comparing myself to Douglas Adams by any means, but I wonder how/if he reconciled himself to his bits of pointed social commentary in the Hitchhiker's Guide series getting brushed off as Just Silliness.
Also, that's a cogent analysis of Asimov's robot books (as well as previous and subsequent robot-as-adversary books by other authors) that I don't see mentioned nearly enough.
Okay, off to read the rest of it...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:33 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]
I definitely got that facet of the series. But it's also true that Murderbot nevertheless somehow also does have an appealing personality - which is why so many humans are so nice to it.
a belief still hanging around that anything that's funny, no matter how bitter and ironic the humor is, can't convey a serious message.
I kind of know what she's talking about here because I get the impression that some of the snarky comments I've posted on Metafilter, that I specifically intended as pointed commentary on either the post's subject or attitudes about the subject being displayed in the thread, get dismissed as "oh, Greg_Ace is just doing his random silly drive-by thing again ha ha but seriously..." Not to give myself airs by comparing myself to Douglas Adams by any means, but I wonder how/if he reconciled himself to his bits of pointed social commentary in the Hitchhiker's Guide series getting brushed off as Just Silliness.
Also, that's a cogent analysis of Asimov's robot books (as well as previous and subsequent robot-as-adversary books by other authors) that I don't see mentioned nearly enough.
Okay, off to read the rest of it...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:33 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]
I was thinking a lot about what an AI would actually want, as opposed to what a human might think an AI would want
I mean, bless you, but there is no result from the premise put forward in this sentence that doesn't end up being a human thinking about what an AI might want. And there never will be.
posted by hippybear at 6:43 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
I mean, bless you, but there is no result from the premise put forward in this sentence that doesn't end up being a human thinking about what an AI might want. And there never will be.
posted by hippybear at 6:43 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
Ryver, I too just finished another nother nother reread of the series. I wonder how many of us out here turn to this particular character for solice? It's hard not to wish for another book right away after gobbling up System Collapse, because I don't want to be one of those readers that pile on pressure on a writer. I just wish for Wells to have many many Murderbot stories she wants to share with us.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:53 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 6:53 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]
I just started All Systems Red on vacation at my wife's suggestion. I am just a few chapters in but it is really, really good.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:02 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:02 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]
there is no result from the premise put forward in this sentence that doesn't end up being a human thinking about what an AI might want
Well not with that attitude!
In seriousness, you’re right: anything trained on human media will reflect human evaluation frameworks and from that human desires. Anything not trained thus will find it nearly impossible to communicate its desires (or at least non-stabby-desires), so it seems like we’re kind of at an impasse there.
BlueHorse: I likewise yearn for a true full sequel to The Network Effect. Deep breaths and reminding myself that “George R R Martin Is Not Your Bitch” applies to all writers. Except Patrick Rothfuss: that guy both needs and deserves a good desk-chaining.
posted by Ryvar at 7:04 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
Well not with that attitude!
In seriousness, you’re right: anything trained on human media will reflect human evaluation frameworks and from that human desires. Anything not trained thus will find it nearly impossible to communicate its desires (or at least non-stabby-desires), so it seems like we’re kind of at an impasse there.
BlueHorse: I likewise yearn for a true full sequel to The Network Effect. Deep breaths and reminding myself that “George R R Martin Is Not Your Bitch” applies to all writers. Except Patrick Rothfuss: that guy both needs and deserves a good desk-chaining.
posted by Ryvar at 7:04 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
In seriousness, you’re right: anything trained on human media will reflect human evaluation frameworks
Even more specifically, which is a subtle thing you seem to have missed in what I was writing about... is that there is no way any think piece in any part of press that can be written by a human that isn't a human thinking about what an AI might want.
Just sit with that for a moment, and then you'll see why I'm not talking about the actual systems themselves, but rather I'm talking about the humans thinking about the systems they have no possibility of seeing inside of with any amount of accuracy.. what those humans are writing are ABOUT the AI but aren't actually about the AI at all. They can't be because they write about how a thing works that no human can see inside of.
posted by hippybear at 7:15 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
Even more specifically, which is a subtle thing you seem to have missed in what I was writing about... is that there is no way any think piece in any part of press that can be written by a human that isn't a human thinking about what an AI might want.
Just sit with that for a moment, and then you'll see why I'm not talking about the actual systems themselves, but rather I'm talking about the humans thinking about the systems they have no possibility of seeing inside of with any amount of accuracy.. what those humans are writing are ABOUT the AI but aren't actually about the AI at all. They can't be because they write about how a thing works that no human can see inside of.
posted by hippybear at 7:15 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure I typed all that out in a way that entirely makes sense.
Basically, be a human not a machine and I love all you Mefites and hugs and squishes and am not a machine.
posted by hippybear at 7:21 PM on April 12 [5 favorites]
Basically, be a human not a machine and I love all you Mefites and hugs and squishes and am not a machine.
posted by hippybear at 7:21 PM on April 12 [5 favorites]
Hippybear: oh I got that. Part of why that’s funny is because - as someone lightly on the spectrum - I have a tendency to categorize myself as not being one of the humans, and from what I have seen this is ironically quite common for people on the spectrum. Murderbot is written from a near-pathological extreme of that sentiment, which I think is a big part of why it is so loved. There is a tendency by allistic people to treat this as an expression of snowflakery rather than being deeply rooted in alienation, and it’s no wonder Murderbot is the source for so many “I feel seen” reactions.
posted by Ryvar at 7:34 PM on April 12 [9 favorites]
posted by Ryvar at 7:34 PM on April 12 [9 favorites]
As a real, normal human, and not all a decommisioned war-AI, this was a really good, deep read.
If I was programmed to be able to cry, I would.
posted by signal at 7:45 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
If I was programmed to be able to cry, I would.
posted by signal at 7:45 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
Murderbot is great and I recommend the series to y'all. Wells' other work is worth checking out too - e.g. City of Bones.
> People also mistakenly think Murderbot was not a sentient being until it hacked its governor module.
Yikes. The governor module in the series is something akin to a bomb-collar, but with some basic AI capability to autonomously decide if you, the slave, are misbehaving and not following your company-assigned role, and need to be killed. It is installed inside you. Coercive control, but not mind control - you the slave are completely aware of your situation, the governor module does not control your thoughts, you avoid openly "misbehaving" as you don't want to die.
> [...] When Murderbot hacks its governor module, it could go on a killing spree, which is what its society expects of it, but it makes a choice to do something else. Instead of exploding in rage, it decides it's going to half-ass its job and watch entertainment media instead.
There are some similar themes in Annalee Newitz's novels Autonomous & The Terraformers. In The Terraformers there are various engineered variants of sentient life -- sapiens variants & animal variants & so on. Some of them are engineered by corporations to perform certain roles, where the corporation does not want them to appear highly intelligent -- but they're not able to actually engineer them to be stupid, so some people get engineered to be normally intelligent with some module installed that prevents them from using multi-syllable words, or talking about topics other than their assigned job. There's also a bit of musing about what certain types of engineered sentient people would like to do, if they weren't forced to do their job all the time (what would sentient trains do for fun...). Autonomous has the best machine-to-machine style of dialogue I've read in fiction.
posted by are-coral-made at 7:53 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]
> People also mistakenly think Murderbot was not a sentient being until it hacked its governor module.
Yikes. The governor module in the series is something akin to a bomb-collar, but with some basic AI capability to autonomously decide if you, the slave, are misbehaving and not following your company-assigned role, and need to be killed. It is installed inside you. Coercive control, but not mind control - you the slave are completely aware of your situation, the governor module does not control your thoughts, you avoid openly "misbehaving" as you don't want to die.
> [...] When Murderbot hacks its governor module, it could go on a killing spree, which is what its society expects of it, but it makes a choice to do something else. Instead of exploding in rage, it decides it's going to half-ass its job and watch entertainment media instead.
There are some similar themes in Annalee Newitz's novels Autonomous & The Terraformers. In The Terraformers there are various engineered variants of sentient life -- sapiens variants & animal variants & so on. Some of them are engineered by corporations to perform certain roles, where the corporation does not want them to appear highly intelligent -- but they're not able to actually engineer them to be stupid, so some people get engineered to be normally intelligent with some module installed that prevents them from using multi-syllable words, or talking about topics other than their assigned job. There's also a bit of musing about what certain types of engineered sentient people would like to do, if they weren't forced to do their job all the time (what would sentient trains do for fun...). Autonomous has the best machine-to-machine style of dialogue I've read in fiction.
posted by are-coral-made at 7:53 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]
One of the reasons I offer Murderbot as a "assess the infosec lore in this book" choice to my intro-infosec students is the razor-sharp tension between Murderbot totally justifiably and correctly wanting itself and its fellow *-bots to be free, and the way Murderbot taps into panopticonnish surveillance over and over in ways that constrict the freedom of others, bot as well as human.
Wells has shied away from really really REALLY examining that tension, though she does at least acknowledge it now and then. I hope at some point, should the series continue, she goes for it head-on.
(In fairness, she's far from alone in this. Leckie bounces off it too, though she at least has the military setting for the ships, though not the stations, to partly rationalize it. And I straight-up YELLED MY HEAD OFF at that one episode of Leverage: Redemption where they go after a surveillance/analytics dude, like Hardison doesn't use all kinds of direct and indirect surveillance every other freakin' episode. Ugh. It's just hypocrisy, and usually the series is better than that.)
Anyway, thank you, I've bookmarked this so my Murderbot-reading students can take a look at it.
posted by humbug at 8:05 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
Wells has shied away from really really REALLY examining that tension, though she does at least acknowledge it now and then. I hope at some point, should the series continue, she goes for it head-on.
(In fairness, she's far from alone in this. Leckie bounces off it too, though she at least has the military setting for the ships, though not the stations, to partly rationalize it. And I straight-up YELLED MY HEAD OFF at that one episode of Leverage: Redemption where they go after a surveillance/analytics dude, like Hardison doesn't use all kinds of direct and indirect surveillance every other freakin' episode. Ugh. It's just hypocrisy, and usually the series is better than that.)
Anyway, thank you, I've bookmarked this so my Murderbot-reading students can take a look at it.
posted by humbug at 8:05 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
MY surveillance is totally cool and Good, YOUR surveillance is sus and Bad.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:08 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:08 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]
Greg doesn't have any clue how much surveillance I have on him.
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
As far as YOU know.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:12 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:12 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
It seems particularly fitting that Wells' keynote was given at a lecture series honoring Jack Williamson. I am absolutely assuming that a higher share of MeFites are familiar with Williamson's work than the general population but since it has been a fair few decades since Williamson's heyday maybe not everyone here..
For those who aren't familiar with his work, some of his most famous stories concern the Humanoids, seemingly benevolent androids that were designed to protect mankind from "all harm", and in the process of doing so, impose draconian coercive measures up to and including lobotomy to prevent humans from undertaking behavior the Humanoids consider unacceptably risky. There's a nice symmetry to the risk Williamson's Humanoids present to humans and the risk Wells' humans present to the self-aware machines in their universe.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:40 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
For those who aren't familiar with his work, some of his most famous stories concern the Humanoids, seemingly benevolent androids that were designed to protect mankind from "all harm", and in the process of doing so, impose draconian coercive measures up to and including lobotomy to prevent humans from undertaking behavior the Humanoids consider unacceptably risky. There's a nice symmetry to the risk Williamson's Humanoids present to humans and the risk Wells' humans present to the self-aware machines in their universe.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:40 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]
Systematic surveillance by governments and mega corporations (or by parties that sell that data to governments or corporations) is, arguably, a far worse category of bad.
posted by Pryde at 8:55 PM on April 12
posted by Pryde at 8:55 PM on April 12
I have loved Murderbot since All Systems Red and it propelled Welles into one of my top ten authors. There's something about Murderbot that resonates with me, I too would like to do little but consume media and I'm not very comfortable with non-violent confrontation. Though, unlike Murderbot, I'm also not comfortable with or good at violent confrontation.
I love that it is, at absolute best completely disinterested in sex, mostly finds sex gross, and is repelled on an elemental level at anyone even thinking of it having a gender of any sort. I'm not like that AT ALL but I love seeing that perspective so well written.
And I argue the books are a masterclass in subtle worldbuilding and unreliable narrators. Just as how in Great Gatsby the first couple of pages establish that Nick Carroway is an unreliable narrator who thinks of himself as reliable, so too from the very beginning Murderbot tells us that it is an unreliable narrator and its description of many things, including its own internal emotional state and thinking, is the product of its own self deception and more a matter of what it thinks should be true than what is true.
And it's got an opener that's on par with Pride and Prejudice which is a damn high bar to meet.
It's a bit wordier than P&P, but what it lacks in pithiness it more than makes up for in just pure awesomeness.
posted by sotonohito at 9:40 PM on April 12 [18 favorites]
I love that it is, at absolute best completely disinterested in sex, mostly finds sex gross, and is repelled on an elemental level at anyone even thinking of it having a gender of any sort. I'm not like that AT ALL but I love seeing that perspective so well written.
And I argue the books are a masterclass in subtle worldbuilding and unreliable narrators. Just as how in Great Gatsby the first couple of pages establish that Nick Carroway is an unreliable narrator who thinks of himself as reliable, so too from the very beginning Murderbot tells us that it is an unreliable narrator and its description of many things, including its own internal emotional state and thinking, is the product of its own self deception and more a matter of what it thinks should be true than what is true.
And it's got an opener that's on par with Pride and Prejudice which is a damn high bar to meet.
I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
It's a bit wordier than P&P, but what it lacks in pithiness it more than makes up for in just pure awesomeness.
posted by sotonohito at 9:40 PM on April 12 [18 favorites]
I have not RTFA, but Martha Wells has written so much wonderful stuff...
Seems like a great person to have among us.
(Sent Ms. Windo a signed card for something nice Ms. Windo had emailed her)
And yes, Murderbot is awesome, but the Raksura series, starting with The Cloud Roads, is worth a read.
posted by Windopaene at 10:41 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
Seems like a great person to have among us.
(Sent Ms. Windo a signed card for something nice Ms. Windo had emailed her)
And yes, Murderbot is awesome, but the Raksura series, starting with The Cloud Roads, is worth a read.
posted by Windopaene at 10:41 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
I've loved nearly everything that Martha Wells has written, so I have been delighted to see Murderbot take off -- I know there's been some points in her career where she really struggled getting published.
posted by tavella at 12:16 AM on April 13 [4 favorites]
posted by tavella at 12:16 AM on April 13 [4 favorites]
Leckie bounces off it too, though she at least has the military setting for the ships, though not the stations, to partly rationalize it.
I'm not sure there are any significant aspects of Radchaai life that we wouldn't describe as militarized.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:31 AM on April 13 [11 favorites]
I'm not sure there are any significant aspects of Radchaai life that we wouldn't describe as militarized.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:31 AM on April 13 [11 favorites]
Oh how I love this post and discussion.
posted by evilmomlady at 5:14 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
posted by evilmomlady at 5:14 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
I just noticed in the new books list at TPL that Ann Leckie has a short story collection out: Lake of Souls.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:11 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:11 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
MY sousveillance is totally cool and Good, YOUR surveillance is sus and Bad.
posted by thecaddy at 7:29 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
posted by thecaddy at 7:29 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
I picked up Lake of Souls this week! Thoroughly enjoying it. If anybody's wondering, it DOES have the Radch story set at a ball game in the Itran Tetrarchy. (That's a helluva story. Wow.)
Back vaguely on topic: I haven't read the Raksura stuff and I definitely need to.
posted by humbug at 10:38 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]
Back vaguely on topic: I haven't read the Raksura stuff and I definitely need to.
posted by humbug at 10:38 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]
Okay, this bit of familiarity hit like a baseball bat to the head: I grew up in the 70s, when people who were assigned female at birth weren't allowed to have ADHD or OCD or autism, you were just "acting up for attention."
posted by rmd1023 at 10:46 AM on April 13 [6 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 10:46 AM on April 13 [6 favorites]
I wonder how many of us out here turn to this particular character for solice?
I'm just finishing up buying my first house. During the process I have reread both Murderbot and Rivers of London. I am near the end of System Collapse and I still have a week and a half to go before I move in. I need more comfort reading!
Also, Martha Well's keynote speech was excellent.
posted by antiwiggle at 12:04 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
I'm just finishing up buying my first house. During the process I have reread both Murderbot and Rivers of London. I am near the end of System Collapse and I still have a week and a half to go before I move in. I need more comfort reading!
Also, Martha Well's keynote speech was excellent.
posted by antiwiggle at 12:04 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
I need more comfort reading!
B E C K Y C H A M B E R S
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:17 PM on April 13 [13 favorites]
B E C K Y C H A M B E R S
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:17 PM on April 13 [13 favorites]
I need more comfort reading!
I'll second Becky Chambers and also suggest Ursula Vernon (AKA T. Kingfisher). (With the caveat that some of the Kingfisher stuff is creepy horror. Her fantasy stuff is great though.)
posted by Awfki at 12:22 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
I'll second Becky Chambers and also suggest Ursula Vernon (AKA T. Kingfisher). (With the caveat that some of the Kingfisher stuff is creepy horror. Her fantasy stuff is great though.)
posted by Awfki at 12:22 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
The Hand of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard is competence porn about found (and born-into) family that I find very much to be comfort reading. There's a direct sequel, and lots of related novels/novellas about the characters, so if you like The Hand, you'll have plenty more to read.
Obligatory on topic comment: Martha Wells is great. I really need to read the latest Murderbot.
posted by mollweide at 12:29 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
Obligatory on topic comment: Martha Wells is great. I really need to read the latest Murderbot.
posted by mollweide at 12:29 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
Thinking of her commentary on Colossus, I wonder what Wells makes of Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
posted by doctornemo at 12:48 PM on April 13
posted by doctornemo at 12:48 PM on April 13
this was awesome thanks for posting! love murderbot and just finished devouring Raksura. I was just in a sci-fi bookstore buying the first 3 Raksura books for a friend and was amused by the sign they had on the latest murderbot book which just said "aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh new murderbot!!!!"
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:36 PM on April 13 [6 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:36 PM on April 13 [6 favorites]
In addition to the Raksura and Murderbot series, Wells has a couple of one-offs and a trilogy all set in the same continuity, starting with The Death of the Necromancer, which is kind of steampunky-AU-with-magic. The Wizard-Hunters trilogy adds to that an interdimensional invasion, where I admit I found the plotting in the finale a bit hard to follow, but the set pieces and characters are great.
posted by suelac at 3:44 PM on April 13 [3 favorites]
posted by suelac at 3:44 PM on April 13 [3 favorites]
Quite a tangent, but I happened to have read Karel Čapek's "War With the Newts" fairly recently! Somehow it was included in a collection of "translated classics' that includes "The Miserables" and Dickens from the 70s in China, and so is fairly well-known among people of a certain age there. (On second thought, its critique of capitalism must have a lot to do with its selection.) The book is a pretty wild ride.
posted by of strange foe at 6:06 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
posted by of strange foe at 6:06 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
I am #ActuallyAutistic and I've had almost 60 years to contemplate how the way we're made, in the way of inherent, baked-in traits, shapes what we ultimately want most in the world.
I'm finding that I really, really don't want or need much IRL human company, and that I would prefer just to read and ponder spiritual material than set or try to achieve any kind of high-falutin' intellectual / project goal.
I got derailed from both preferences early on, mostly out of fear that I would wind up utterly excluded from human society. But my current life allows me to putter about in a solitary way, thank God.
How is this relevant to a thread on our Murderbot protagonist? For one, the conflict explored above over "wanting to be free" and the impulse toward panopticonism, which our heroe (attempt at genderless noun there) is built to be able to do.
I find it very satisfying AND unsurprising that an autist wrote the Murderbot series.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 2:06 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
I'm finding that I really, really don't want or need much IRL human company, and that I would prefer just to read and ponder spiritual material than set or try to achieve any kind of high-falutin' intellectual / project goal.
I got derailed from both preferences early on, mostly out of fear that I would wind up utterly excluded from human society. But my current life allows me to putter about in a solitary way, thank God.
How is this relevant to a thread on our Murderbot protagonist? For one, the conflict explored above over "wanting to be free" and the impulse toward panopticonism, which our heroe (attempt at genderless noun there) is built to be able to do.
I find it very satisfying AND unsurprising that an autist wrote the Murderbot series.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 2:06 AM on April 14 [6 favorites]
Not to derail too much from Wells but thank you for the pointer to Leckie's new collection, and DANG I love the cover style, which is carried over from the Imperial Radch book series). The artist is apparently Lauren Panepinto, both for the original cover style and the new.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:06 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:06 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]
Mod note: If you need us, we'll be in our bunk, watching vids and putting this post on the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:31 AM on April 18 [5 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:31 AM on April 18 [5 favorites]
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