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December book club canceled. Short stories instead!
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I disagree that it’s a faithful adaptation from the books.
There have been plenty of lore and story changes. The overall ‘tone’ is different too. Books are more hard sci-fi.
That being said, I’m still enjoying it as its own thing and I wish the episodes were longer.
I'm enjoying it, though it feels...off? Somehow, likely because its a 30m format, it seems to speed through episodes, or starts to pick up steam then abrubtly ends.
Fitting, then,.for a collection of novellas.
I find the lens they used to film many of the shots incredibly distracting. The bokeh is outta control.
I feel like the changes to characters are really large. The feelings I have from each character in the books and the show are not close enough to be the same character. Mensa is so much more emotional and reactive in the show than she was in the books, but I like both. Murderbot is much more human than in the books, there is way less internal monologue, so it feels very different, but I still love the character in both. Same for all the rest.
As for the story changes, so far it seems good in terms of changing just enough to make it fit for TV rather than doing something insanely different with only a passing resemblance to the books. I like how the violence is shocking, sudden, and really limited. In the books it is not the whole story, one gory moment after another, and I was worried they would get sucked into the trap of violence being attention getting and shocking and therefore needed in huge quantity.
The visuals are excellent. From a purely technical perspective they have done a great job with making something easy to look at, enjoyable to experience, and mostly visually consistent. There have been very few moments where the colour balance is skewed weirdly, where the lighting requires adjusting the screen, or where the volume levelling was terrible. Great production quality.
I agree. Subtly different but overall and surprisingly very similar.
PresAux are more hippy like and a little less like the academics in the book which I find just a little annoying but it’s OK (I’m an academic).
One of the things I’m really curious about is how they flesh out the contrast between the capitalist dystopia of the Corporation Rim and the clearly socialist Preservation Aux. I feel like it’s a politically charged topic in the current capitalist dystopia American context (at least that’s how it looks to me from outside America). I keep waiting for them to water it down but they haven’t done it so far. Good on em.
I wish all episodes were out all at once - I'd binge the hell out of it.
It's pretty good but feels quite basic compared to the books.
I read all the books, and my only complaint about the show is that the episodes are over too soon. I know it's different in some ways from the books, but who cares? It's a great show.
I’ve never read the books. But I’m loving the show.
Does the series spoil the books? I haven't started watching or reading yet, although the first book went on my to-read list four years ago.
I just listened to the first book, finished yesterday (it was a whopping three hours, as it’s really a novella). It seems the show is following the first book pretty closely. Some changes sure but the main plot line seems intact. Can’t speak for later books and of course all of the episodes aren’t released yet but it seems to be season 1 = book 1, which is All Systems Red.
I've read the books and thoroughly enjoyed them and am now thoroughly enjoying the show. The emphasis of the show is different, certainly, but in this case I am happy with that. After the first episode in which I was all 'It's not that way in the book...' I am taking as it is.
My SO has not read the books and is also thoroughly enjoying it. It is probably her favourite show at the moment.
I'm enjoying it. Some of the decisions are a little odd. The thing that's most distracting to me is that, in my head, Murderbot appears much more androgynous. That might have been hard to pull off, but Skarsgard is definitely male (even without genitalia). Some of the other characters are goofier than in the books, but I kind of understand the choice.
I hope the show gets people to read the books, but the show is entertaining.
Same! Skarsgard was very jarring compared to my mental image of Murderbot.
I'm actually a big fan of that decision.
The idea that non-binary people have to visibly appear non-binary is a harmful stereotype. Murderbot's physical appearance is a part of its design that it has no control over. Why should it look androgynous? Just because it perceives itself as genderless, doesn't mean it's creators did.
I hope the show will actually dig into that at some point. I think it's really important for people to see an agender character who still has a strongly masc appearance.
It's an interesting point, and I agree with it politically, but in the books it's made clear secunits look androgynous and non-human.
Some change between media change is always going to happen. I think Skarsgård is doing as good a job as can be done with his face. I'm making peace with it. Maybe the bigger problem is the dismissiveness of the portrayal of Preservation Alliance society. But we did live in the Corporate Rim!
They could of at least removed his hair and put some clear cybernetics. In the books, you couldn't mistake Murderbot for a human. Even after ART's modifications (adding hair etc) Murderbot still could only pass as a heavily cybernetically augmented human.
I do fear the shied away from the gender stuff.
The show clearly shows Murderbot as being ACE and uncomfortable with the sexual and gendered reactions of others towards them — which is as important in my view the outward and physical apparent gender.
I do see what your saying, it is just the books have a secunit clearly not looking like any gender. They have skimmed over Muderbot's disgust of gender and sex, but in the books it is constant theme. It's visceral.
To have them be genderless is only half way, as secunits, in the books, also look genderless (and not human).
Skarsgård, for a dude, is doing as good a job as he can. Not many known actors could visually do what I'd have preferred, and also can do a ungendered voice. (Any?). I know it's easier to do it books and realistically they needed a well known actor to pull people to the show.
It's just...just.... That's not my Murderbot!
In my imagination, Murderbot looked kinda like the player character from the game 'Citizen Sleeper', pictured below.
Which is to say, very androgynous and very obviously cybernetic.
There's quite a bit of character similarity between them too, because the titular Sleeper is a human consciousness in a cybernetic body that has a lot of biological parts, and they are kept loyal to the company who owns them by a drug that will cause their body to break down if they stop taking it. Same intent as the governor module, but a different approach.
I found Murderbot's physical appearance an important aspect of the books, not just for surface plot reasons (everyone knows they are a bot etc) but because it's a large part of what people need to overcome from the perspective of seeing past their prejudices.
Not quite as I saw them, but I certainly saw it clearly not human. A composite of plastic, metal and flesh. Comfortable with the label it.
Though the counter to that, I'm sure the books mentions sexbots basically being the same platform as secunits, only with a gender and without built in weapons. With a combatunit being the same again, but with even more weapons (including cyber). Which does say maybe Martha Wells had the platform, without armour, as maybe more fleshly than we are thinking.
The TV series is good, but it's not as I saw in my head. Other than "Sanctuary Moon", which nails it.
I am surprised there hasn't been real unset by fans by giving Murderbot gender. They could have at least picked someone who didn't look binary. But Skarsgård has got the right character if not the right face.
Yeah, I agree the bots are genuinely "more fleshy"and with skin and such - just saying where my imagination was at - which thanks to the wonder of books can be quite different for different people.
I wish we knew what the motivation was for choosing the actor. The cynic in me thinks they opted obviously male lead to reduce friction and claims of "wokeness" but without some inside insight we can't know.
To be honest I've only seen the first two episodes and they didn't really grab me.
I enjoyed the books a lot when I read them, but never felt like it would adapt well to TV since so much exposition happens in the main character's head.
Does it get better in later episodes?
I've been loving it so far, tempted to pick up the books now.
The show is good, the books are fantastic!
A lot of people are watching it, but I ducked out after episode two. I read the books and I felt like it was overly broad in comparison.
The TV adaptation rushes through the story, and doesn’t take its characters seriously. The books aren’t really a broad comedy like the show. For example, the books were more respectful of gender and sexuality. It wasn’t played for laughs except as the bot’s perspective of how he didn’t relate to it or understand the point of it. Same with a lot of the other characteristics of the humans. The humans in the book aren’t actually bumbling idiots, that’s just how the bot perceives them. I felt like the show was missing the point.
I did enjoy how the tv show portrayed “sanctuary moon” though.
If you haven’t read the books, I recommend them. There’s only like one real clunker in the set.
I've picked it up as a casual follow because there's not much else at the moment. It's okay but I am not overwhelmed.
The show focuses, in my opinion, a bit too much on that human/bot mix portraying all kinds of ways he's not actually human. It distracts from the (in my opinion rather thin) storyline. Maybe this is one of those shows that is complementary to the books it's based on?