MURDERBOT KILLING IT

The cranky construct finds itself a sci-fi star — and perhaps the savior of Martha Wells’ career

There was a time before Martha Wells created Murderbot, the character that narrates her award-winning science fiction series, “The Murderbot Diaries,” when she thought her career might be dead.

After a successful start in the ‘90s, things had cooled down by the mid2000s. When the final book in her “Fall of IleRien” trilogy was published without fanfare, the soft-spoken Texan wondered if that was it for her.

“I was kind of at that point in my career where, you know, women writers my age were supposed to quietly fade away. It’s like, ‘Well, you had your shot, and that was it, and now go away.’ So I was not real optimistic about being able to continue to be published,” says the novelist, 56, during a call from her College Station home, which she shares with her husband and three cats.

“I could not sell another book,” says Wells. “I knew my career was in a lot of trouble.”

But she refused to give up. Over the next few years, she got a new agent, started a new series, found a new publisher.

“That kind of got me back going again. I ended up also doing a ‘Star Wars’ novel and did some work on some stories for Magic: The Gathering,” she says, describing herself as plugging away but not soaring during that period. “I thought, ‘Well, this is probably about as high up as I can go,’ you know? It’s like, I’m not gonna win awards, and I’m not gonna be, you know, super popular or anything like that. But if I can keep going at this level, I’ll be OK.

“And then ‘Murderbot’ just hit big,” she says.

A killer idea

Despite its intimidating name, Murderbot spends its time watching what sound suspiciously like soap operas when not protecting — or avoiding — its

human clients, colleagues and friends. After 2017’s “All Systems Red,” Wells published three more novellas and the 2020 novel “Network Effect.”

Now there’s “Fugitive Telemetry,” a new novellain which Murderbot must solve, not commit, a murder. (And there’s more to come. Wells’ publisher announced last week that they’d reached an agreement for six more books, “the largest deal for the imprint to date,” that will include three ‘Murderbot’ books and three unrelated ones, starting with “Witch King” next year.)

Wells delivers creative science-fiction thrills, such as when Murderbot controls swarms of drones that give readers a dazzling range of first-person points of view on the action, along with emotional depth by exploring issues such as alienation and anxiety.

“I think that’s one of the things that a lot of people identify with,” Wells says of the emotional elements. “It’s really interesting to see the whole range of different situations people are in where they look at Murderbot and say, ‘Yeah, I feel just like that.’ “

Initially, given the character’s name, Wells thinks people were expecting a different kind of story.

IGOR KRAGULJAC Martha Wells discusses Murderbot, the character that narrates her awardwinning science fiction series “The Murderbot Diaries.” “Fugitive Telemetry” is the latest in the series.