Compulsory by Martha Wells
Subterranean Press, July 2023
Here be spoilers!
Review by Lis Carey: This is a short story, about an early and critical incident in the life of Murderbot, well before it meets those humans who will, unexpectedly, become its friends. Even The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon is still a relatively recent discovery.
Murderbot is under contract as security in a mine, and its duty is to protect, not the workers, but the equipment. Well, unless death or injury to an employee will negatively affect production.
Murderbot is on duty, but watching a Sanctuary Moon episode rather than truly paying attention to what’s going on nearby, when a fairly foolish argument breaks out between two humans, and results in a stupid accident which sends one of them falling down the mineshaft. When she catches herself on a piece of the equipment, fall halted temporarily, Murderbot has to decide what to do.
Save the fallen miner, and expose itself as no longer under the control of its governor module? Keep (outwardly) following orders, while (inwardly) watching Sanctuary Moon? Which means, letting the miner die for no good reason?
Is there a third alternative?
This is an important turning point for Murderbot, and a formative moment for the Murderbot we come to know and appreciate in its later adventures.
I bought this book.
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I would have thought a review would have told us what the reviewer thinks of the novel(la). Is it good ? A required read ?
Guillaume, she does in her very last paragraph.
This is, like, three pages long—or do you mean you bought the issue of Wired it was in? (For the curious, it’s also available for free online.)
@Ja–I mean I paid a whole, outrageous, $0.99 for it on Amazon. At 99 cents, I didn’t figure I had to spend time checking to see if it was available for free.
@Guillaume–It’s a short review. I assumed most people would be able to read all the way to the end.
It was originally published in Wired. This is a new edition that Subterranean has produced, as ebook, and as a special poster version. It’s longer than the Wired version, as this is the original version, not the edited down version Wired published.
BTW, Martha is currently in the middle of treatment for breast cancer. She’s had one surgery and will have a second one in the next week. She’ll also be undergoing radiation treatment for a month. Prognosis is good however. She’s been posting details about it on her blog at https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/
The Subterranean Press version which Lis reviewed here is six pages long.
I remember going to some trouble to get the issue of Wired with this story (well worth it) – my local bookstore didn’t have the magazine (and the worker there hadn’t heard of it), so I had to get it online.
It’s actually nice to see short fiction like this being offered for sale by itself. I really wish that a lot more short fiction up to and including novellas was done like this as it’s damn difficult to acquire specific works in this length to read unless you buy them as part of a large work.
@Cat Eldridge, I agree; that’s one reason I’m so irritated that my login tokens from Chengdu are apparently falling into a black hole somewhere upstream of my computer. I really look forward to the Hugo packet with novellas, novellettes, and short stories.
(And, of course, I’m unhappy I apparently won’t be able to vote for the Hugos, either.)
@Troyce
I’m sorry that she has to do a second surgery, but a month of radiation is what I got, also. It’s like 15 minutes max, 5 days a week, and is a lot less scary than it sounds.