Dianna Sinovic
Issue 75, Winter 2024
For This Fan: All Systems Go
By Dianna Sinovic
I can’t remember how I discovered the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, but I was hooked only a few pages into the first book.
The four-book series follows the ongoing story of a Security Unit (SecUnit) android with a mind of its own. The stories are set in a galaxy far, far away, but it’s not a tie-in to anything Star Wars. Wells has created a science-fiction world unto itself, complete with enhanced humans, nonstop info feeds, and really, really bad guys. Her main character is both ruthless and vulnerable—and quite sarcastic.
The series has won the big prizes for speculative fiction: several Hugos, Nebulas, and Locuses. It was so successful, with readers clamoring for more stories about SecUnit, that the author went on to write two follow-up novels: Network Effect and System Collapse, the latter of which just came out in November (2023).
In the first novella, All Systems Red, the SecUnit disables its governor module, which had kept it from making its own decisions. That action proves useful when the research crew SecUnit is assigned to faces a double-cross. Through the remaining three novellas in the series—Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy—SecUnit continues to grow and evolve as a character despite the fact that they are more robot than human.
Besides the excellent storytelling in the series, what I found particularly interesting was the gender-neutral approach that Wells takes with her main character. Because SecUnit is not overtly binary, when I read the stories, I assumed SecUnit was female. When my husband read the books, he assumed they were male. Neither of us saw SecUnit as a machine.
Wells is not just a master of spec fiction, though. She’s a prolific writer across several other genres: fantasy, Young Adult, and nonfiction. Witch King, which lands in the fantasy realm, is another recent release of hers, out last fall. She’s also written The Books of the Raksura series and the Ile-Rien series.
According to her website, she is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and her books have been published in twenty-five languages. Born in Forth Worth, she lives in College Station, Texas, and holds a degree in anthropology.
Issue 59, Winter 2020
Literary Learnings
The Cask of Amontillado is one of my favorite stories by Edgar Allen Poe; it's short but every word is effective at driving toward the horror of the ending. Poe was a master of both horror and mystery, and I do enjoy many of his other works, but this one has always stood out for me.
Let's explore the story, which was first published in 1846. It's set at dusk in an unnamed European city, but Poe may have had an Italian town in mind. The narrator is Montresor, who is telling the tale to an anonymous listener (the reader stands in for this audience of one) fifty years later. He is an unreliable narrator, since he gives only his point of view of the events that occurred, and because he's telling the story so long after it happened.
At first, Montresor comes across as a cultured, formal man, someone whose respected family has lived in the town for generations, but it soon becomes clear that he has a cruel streak:
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.
We never hear what those injuries or insults are, but they are enough for Montresor to plan Fortunato's murder. Montresor bides his time before acting on his revenge, and then lures a drunken Fortunato into the family catacombs ostensibly to sample and judge a newly acquired barrel of a fine sherry wine, the Amontillado. There is no cask of wine, but Montresor plays on Fortunato's vanity as a wine connoisseur to tempt him into the vault.
That vanity means that Fortunato ignores several hints of what is to come, intent only on reaching the cask of wine. He asks about Montresor's family coat of arms—a large golden foot squashing a snake that is biting the heel—and Montresor reveals the motto: Nemo me impune lacessit, which means "No one insults me with impunity."
The story's horror comes from Montresor's sidestepping legal channels to address the wrongs he says he has suffered and instead punishing his former friend with only his word as proof. Different people can interpret the same event or words differently. It's likely that Fortunato was not even aware that his words or actions offended Montresor.
The story has delicious instances of both dramatic and verbal irony. The dramatic irony is the reader's dawning awareness of what Montresor plans to do. An example of the verbal irony comes in Montresor's supposed concern about Fortunato's lingering cough:
"Enough, [Fortunato] said, "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
"True—true," I replied.
In the end, Montresor delivers Fortunato to a crypt deep in the catacombs, chains him to the stone, and bricks up the opening. Montresor apparently is telling the tale only now because so much time has elapsed that he believes he is beyond any retribution.
Until next time, happy reading!