Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Murderbot has acquired data vital to the legal case between the Preservation Alliance and the GrayCris corporation, but quickly discovers that their old friends in the Alliance are in hot water. Diverting to a GrayCris stronghold, Murderbot discovers they need to rescue their comrades and defeat the security forces of one of the most powerful corporations in known space, whilst preserving their evidence.

Exit Strategy is the fourth novella in The Murderbot Diaries series and brings the events of the first four books to a head. Our titular hero starts off already on a mission, bringing the evidence it acquired during the events of Rogue Protocol to its allies, only to find that they already being held over a barrel by GrayCris's legal and security teams. This prompts Murderbot to intervene and face seemingly insurmountable odds.

Martha Wells changes up a few things in the series in this book, which is good as some predictability was threatening to set in. Murderbot is rescuing people who know they are a rogue AI and going up against enemies who know they are a rogue AI, so their normal paranoia about protecting their true identity is less of an issue this time around (at least after they go public, they need to stay stealthy until then). This time Murderbot is also going into a situation knowing who the enemy is and what they are prepared to do to achieve their ends, rather than going in blind to a hazardous situation. This gives Murderbot some preparation time and it's fun seeing how they stake out the situation, establish fallback plans and gather resources for the operation.

There's also a nice deepening of Murderbot's characterisation. They are reuniting with the first humans who learned their true nature and accepted it, something that they still feel a bit uneasy about because it means having to learn to trust humans, who aren't the most trustworthy of people. How Murderbot squares their desire for some kind of community with their paranoia and (mostly justified) fear of being dissected has been an underlying theme since the first book, but becomes more dominant here.

The result is a satisfying story, being sharply-written, well-characterised and to the point, with little flab. It's still a short book, but Wells packs in a lot of meat here, with corporate espionage, comedic exchanges and satisfying combat all wrapped into a compact package.

Exit Strategy (****) changes up the Murderbot formula as it threatened to become predictable, and the result is another focused, fun slice of SF. It is available now in the US and on import in most other territories.

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