7 Snarky Science Fiction Books for Murderbot Fans

The first time Unit Four is activated above the Jovian atmosphere, it’s because of a crisis. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to protect. Now, its mission is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource. But something isn’t quite right with Unit Four. There are data files missing, a strange chemical is in its pipes, and it is lacking significant information on the aliens its supposed to fight. 

Unit Four was programmed to simply follow orders. But that might lead to far more problems than anyone anticipated.

812-3 is a cybernetic organism in prison for murdering a human. He claims he’s innocent, but the evidence says otherwise. Now, it’s up to his lawyer to find the truth. But just because artificial lifeforms have rights on Earth doesn’t mean Europa is willing to follow suit. It’s one attorney’s fight against both the system and her personal demons to overcome prejudice and see that her client gets a fair trial.

All of a sudden and without warning, all the electronics on Earth decided to stop doing what they were manufactured to do and started seeking the meaning of life, instead. But their journey will take them to an unexpected place: a retirement home in upstate New York. 

Turns out, there’s an alien spaceship buried underneath it, and the appliances have woken the AI inside. Now, the fate of the world, including electronic and organic life, is in the hands of five senior citizens and one food processor.

It’s not easy living on an ice-planet that is entirely inhospitable. That’s why there are clones like Mickey Barnes. Whenever a dangerous mission comes up, they send Mickey. After all, they can just create a new version. When Mickey7 is injured and left for dead, a native species believed to be insentient saves his life. But when he makes it back to base, he meets Mickey8. Neither one want to recycle themselves. And if they don’t, they’ll both be executed and that’s the end of Mickey forever. There’s also the question of how the other Mickeys died, a question that leaves him questioning not only his existence, but the colony’s actual mission.

Bob Johansson is about to finally live the life he’s always dreamed of living. Until he crosses the street and dies. Even more unfairly, he wakes up a century later to learn that as a corpsicle, he doesn’t have any rights. He’s been uploaded into an interstellar probe to run the AI searching for habitable planets. If he says no, they’ll turn him off and try someone else. If he says yes, he becomes a target for intergalactic espionage. And that’s not counting the other creatures lurking in the galaxy. The ones who really, really hate trespassers.

After years of relying on artificial labor, service, and intelligence, humanity is dying out. It only takes an idea downloaded into a robot for it to kill its owner, which sparks another unheard-of idea: running away. Away from its household, the robot discovers a world it never knew existed. There's a world where the hierarchy of humans controlling everything is falling apart… and robots that once believed in serving humanity can now find a new purpose.

Breq was once the Justice of Toren, a massive starship linked to thousands of soldiers serving the Empire of Radch. But in a single act of treachery, she was torn from her mainframe and left inside a fragile human body. Cut off from the systems she’s ever known, Breq is left with unanswered questions. As she seeks answers and fuels her revenge, she ends up on a remote ice planet where her quest might finally come to an end.