My dad jokes that he only reads emails and text messages. I finally convinced him to give the Murderbot Diaries a chance. He read through the entire series nonstop in about a month.
He doesn’t see himself as a reader, and initially loved that the first few books in the series were shorter length. He was nervous about reading the two Murderbots that were novel-length, but in the end he breezed through them.
At first I thought he’d like Murderbot because Murderbot always wins in the end and it was action-y—like a Jason Bourne or Reacher type of thing. But hearing him talk about the books, what drew him in were the characters (especially ART and Murderbot). He loved how snarky Murderbot was.
He loves sci-fi, but the characters need to have a victory—there can be high stakes, but he doesn’t like constant grim/overly dark/depressing things, but will tolerate them if the characters can have a win here and there.
These are some things he likes:
Ready Player One (he read this before)
The Expanse
Murderbot Diaries
TIA!
by like-herding-cats
4 Comments
He might like Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
It’s hard to beat the interaction between Murderbot and ART.
John Scalzi’s **Starter Villain** is the most entertaining book I’ve read recently. It’s a spoof of the early James Bond movies. A substitute teacher inherits his estranged uncle’s villainy which comes complete with a secret volcanic lair.
Yahtzee Croshaw’s **Will Save the Galaxy For Food**. A space pilot put out of work by technology scrounges a living. The protagonist is a mashup of Han Solo and Crocodile Dundee.
Just to be clear, has he read the Bourne or Reacher books? There are other series like this too.
Andy Weir and Blake Crouch books would probably be up his alley too.
Dungeon Crawler Carl. I know it probably sounds dumb, but such a great series. Snarky, action-packed, great character development. It is sci-fi, not fantasy. And they win, at least in the first 6 books! Author just signed a big hardcover deal and a film adaptation, so it’s going to be a big thing.
Alternatively, he might enjoy Bob-iverse. Similar to muderbot in some ways.