Murderbot Diaries Books in Order

On a later assignment, Murderbot volunteers for a rescue mission that will strand it on a failing orbital platform with strangers, including children. Managing panicked civilians, hostile forces, and its own social discomfort may be harder than any firefight.

Set between Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol, this short piece focuses on Perihelion, the starship AI nicknamed ART. When Peri and its crew respond to a corporate station in the middle of a hostile takeover, the mission tests the bonds between ship and humans without Murderbot there to mediate.

In the aftermath of Network Effect, Murderbot and its Preservation allies are trying to stabilize a fragile colony before a rival corporation can strip it for profit. As more SecUnits arrive and tensions rise, Murderbot's unprocessed trauma starts to interfere with its work, forcing it to face what recovery might actually look like.

Before Network Effect, Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station and reluctantly agrees to help station security investigate. Solving the murder pulls it into corporate schemes, refugee smuggling, and uneasy teamwork with humans who still fear what it is.

Assigned to a research mission with some familiar humans, Murderbot is dragged aboard a hostile ship and hauled through a wormhole. The vessel's mind is an old friend in trouble, and to save both the crew and a threatened colony, Murderbot has to confront an alien intelligence and its own growing attachments.

Set just after Exit Strategy, this short story follows Dr Mensah on Preservation Station as she copes with political pressure and trauma from GrayCris. While defending her choices and her SecUnit, she has to decide what kind of future she wants for herself and Murderbot.

Still gathering evidence against the GrayCris corporation, Murderbot infiltrates an abandoned terraforming facility on Milu. There it befriends an earnest helper bot named Miki and is dragged into yet another rescue mission when corporate agents and combat machines close in.

GrayCris strikes back by kidnapping Dr Mensah, the one human Murderbot really trusts. To get her back, it returns to the corporate heartland, reunites with old allies, and stages a risky operation inside a fortified spaceport where every security system is looking for it.

Murderbot sneaks away to the mining facility where it once supposedly murdered its whole crew, hoping to learn the truth about that incident. Traveling with a sarcastic research transport AI, it has to pose as human and protect a new group of clients on a dangerous contract.

On a remote survey planet, a corporate owned security unit has secretly hacked its control system and named itself Murderbot. When its clients' mission is sabotaged, it has to choose between staying invisible and breaking cover to keep them alive.