Comfort Reading That Just Happens To Support A Goal

I remember early summer fondly. I had fewer family responsibilities than I'd had in years. The temps weren't terribly high. We didn't get any biking in, but managed a few short walks in town on weekends. Unfortunately, I had family members heading out on a lengthy trip at the end of June, and family members traveling is always a source of anxiety for me. Definitely damaged my bliss.

I treated that with a binge of Books Two through Four of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I could feel good about reading these books for two reasons.

• First, and most importantly, I love Murderbot
• Second, I have an adult scifi manuscript I've mentioned before that I'll be shopping around again some day, and I'm working on improving my recent reading background in this genre.

Now, I'm somewhat off-topic with these books, since they're adult, and I specialize in childlit here. But they first came to my attention last year when the first book in the series, All Systems Red, was an Alex Award winner. The Alex Award being for adult books with "special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18." So there's a connection.

These are marvelous first-person novellas told from the point-of-view of a Security Unit, an artificial life form with some human material thrown in. It's on a journey to discover how it came to murder some humans it was supposed to be protecting, as well as working on a corporate plot against a former employer. With all that on its plate, it still finds time to access the entertainment media it downloads. It finds a lot of time for that, actually.

Murderbot's quests are carried over amongst these books. But the series doesn't seem like an obvious serial. Each novella has its own storyline as well.

Murderbot is a great character, and these are great distractions when you have something you want to be distracted from.