The Muderbot Diaries Reading Order

By S Pavithran
Updated: June 12, 2024 15:30

The Murderbot Diaries is a series of novellas that has garnered critical acclaim and earned the author, Martha Wells, couple of Nebula & Hugo Awards. It follows a part-human and part-robot humanoid construct which was owned by a corporation that rented and sold humanoids with different specialised functions. This construct's function is to provide security and protection for whichever client it is provided to as contract between the client and the nebulous corporate entity always referred to as "The Company". The books are written in first person perspective of the titular robot who privately refers to itself as "Murderbot". The bot has released itself from the corporate control by self-hacking the governor module on itself.

The Murderbot Diaries - Author

Martha Wells is the author of The Murderbot Diaries. She has also wriiten Ile-Rien and The Books of the Raksura along with a number of fantasy novels, short stories and other publications. Wells has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for the Murderbot Diaries.

The Books of The Murderbot Diaries

The Murderbot Diaries is an ongoing series with three more Murderbot books to come. It currently has seven novels/novellas and 3 short stories. The books are self contained episodes of adventures of the humanoid construct,called "SecUnit" as the designed function of it is security and protection of clients. The order of the books are different when considering the in-story chronological timeline from the order when considering the publication time. The list of books in The Murderbot Diaries are:

Novels:

All Systems Red (2017)
Artificial Condition(2018)
Rogue Protocol(2018)
Exit Strategy (2018)
Network Effect(2020)
Fugitive Telemetry(2021)
System Collapse (2023)

Short Stories:

Compulsory (2018)
Obsolescence (2019)
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (2021)

Chronological Order of The Murderbot Diaries

If you are looking to re-explore the Corporation Rim universe through the eyes of the SecUnit in the proper chronological order, then below is the order of reading you should follow:

Obsolescence
Compulsory
All Systems Red
Artificial Condition
Rogue Protocol
Exit Strategy
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
Fugitive Telemetry
Network Effect
System Collapse

Upcoming Murderbot Diaries Books

Tor.com Publishing has announced a six book deal with Wells, which includes three Murderbot books. So the adventures of the SecUnit is expected to continue together with ART, the AI which operates a transport and reasearch spaceship in the books.

The live action series

Wells has previously said that a TV series adaptation was in works with script that she was excited about. Apple later confirmed it had picked up the adaptation for its streaming service, AppleTV. With adaptations of the Foundation novels and Dark Matter, AppleTV adds another sci-fi series to its library. Further details about cast will be featured in another article soon.