How Murderbot Saved Martha Wells’ Life
Murder is in the air. Everywhere I turn, I see images of a robot killing machine. Then I remind myself where I actually am: in a library lecture room on a college campus in East Texas. The air is a little musty with the smell of old books, and a middle-aged woman with wavy gray-brown hair bows her head as she takes the podium. She might appear a kindly librarian or a cat lady (confirmed), but her mind is a capacious galaxy of starships, flying bipeds, and ancient witches. She is Martha Wells, creator of Murderbot.
Hearing a name like that, you’d be forgiven for running for your life. But the thing about Murderbot—the thing that makes it one of the most beloved, iconic characters in modern-day science fiction—is just that: It’s not what it seems. For all its hugeness and energy-weaponized body armor, Murderbot is a softie. It’s socially awkward and appreciates sarcasm. Not only does it detest murdering, it wants to save human lives, and often does (at least when it’s not binge-watching its favorite TV shows). “As a heartless killing machine,” as Murderbot puts it, “I was a terrible failure.”
The character made its debut in Wells’ 2017 novella, All Systems Red. Yes, a novella: not exactly a popular form at the time, but it flew off the shelves, shocking even Wells’ publisher. In short order, more stories and novellas appeared, and then a couple of full-length novels. Wells scooped up every major award in the genre: four Hugos, two Nebulas, and six Locuses. By the time she and I started talking this past spring, Apple TV+ had begun filming a television adaptation starring Alexander Skarsgård.
At conventions and book signings around the world, Wells draws legions of fans, but here in Texas only about 30 people are nestled in the warm, wood-paneled library, which today is crammed with Murderbot art and paraphernalia. Wells begins by reading a short story, told from the perspective of a scientist who helps Murderbot gain its freedom. After the reading, a woman in the audience tells Wells how impressed she is by the subtlety of the social and political issues in the Murderbot stories. “Was that intentional?” the woman asks. Martha responds politely, affirming that it was, before saying: “I don’t think it’s particularly subtle.” It’s a slave narrative, she says. What’s annoying is when people don’t see that.
What’s also annoying is when people who’ve just discovered Murderbot wonder if she can write anything else. Wells, who is 60 years old, has averaged almost a book a year for more than three decades, ranging from palace intrigues to excursions into distant worlds populated by shapeshifters. But until Murderbot, Wells tended to fly just under the radar. One reason for that, I suspect, is location. Far from the usual literary enclaves of New York or Los Angeles, Wells has lived for all this time in College Station—which is where the nearly 100-year-old library we’re at today resides. Housed on the campus of Texas A&M, her alma mater, the library contains one of the largest collections of science fiction and fantasy in the world.
It’s from this cradle that Wells’ career sprang forth. But post-Murderbot, things have changed. Wells now counts among her friends literary superstars like N. K. Jemisin and Kate Elliott, to say nothing of her fiercely loyal fandom. And it turns out that she’d need all of it—the support, the community, even Murderbot—when, at the pinnacle of her newfound, later-in-life fame, everything threatened to come to an end.
