Fugitive Telemetry
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Review
Fugitive Telemetry, by , is the sixth book in The Murderbot Diaries. In it, Murderbot is reluctantly pulled into a murder investigation by Preservation Station security.
Fugitive Telemetry is a stand-alone story set between Exit Strategy and Network Effect. As Murderbot and station security investigate, they discover the dead man was helping slaves escape from the Corporate Rim, smuggling them through various neutral stations.
The book is good fun. Murderbot is its normally anxious, depressed, hyper-competent self. Bad guys get beaten up. Good guys learn to like Murderbot, first begrudgingly and then genuinely. The mystery moves quickly and mainly forces Murderbot to work alongside humans instead of just hacking or shooting its way through the problem.
Fugitive Telemetry continues the series’s interest in what makes someone a person, which I discussed in my review of Network Effect. Here the focus shifts to ordinary bots. We learn that they have their own, highly formalized query/response language and that on Preservation they are allowed to name themselves (much to Murderbot’s chagrin). And unlike Murderbot or humans, they don’t have emotions because they don’t have neural tissue. But when one of their own appears to be in danger, the bots act together to avenge it and protect the humans nearby.
I enjoyed Fugitive Telemetry, but I think that was partly just a bounce-back from the slow-paced A Trade of Blood. Usually, with this series, I spot some theme that weaves through the book. I have fun finding that and discussing it. But for this book I don’t have a lot to say because… the book doesn’t have a lot to say that’s new. It’s about agency and what makes a person, again, and it feels less integrated into the narrative. I hope this isn’t a sign the series is losing me.
