The Terminator as played by David Bowie? 
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if they do much onboard youre probably right. those moments work well in a book, maybe not so much on screen.
the fact it’s described as “action packed” gives me pause. it probably won’t be a show where murderbot sits and watches television with us… that’s all i really want anyway
at least we always have crow, i guess
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Whether or not that will actually get released 
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For Shame. Mick Herron is a distinctive writer, and his sentences are like garden paths, often leading the reader in precisely the wrong direction. Here’s an excerpt from Slow Horses.
Excerpt from Slow Horses (Deluxe Edition) | Penguin Random House Canada
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I asked my mate down the road to lend me book one and he only went and moved out rather than do it!
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Yeah. The internal monologue and the passages describing hacking into systems will not translate well onto a screen. OTOH, the real-space fighting scenes will probably be better, they end up being a bit tedious on the page. But fights are pretty common on TV and not what make the Murderbot books interesting.
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Appropriate AND seasonal.
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Love, love, the “Murderbot” books and I hope the show brings new attention to them, but I won’t be watching this. It’s Apple TV+ for one, but also I find I can either watch the adaptation or read the book - doing both leads to disappointment (usually with the adaptation, especially when even the casting is off from the start). Rather than be disappointed with the show, I’ll hope for the release of another book in the series.
Yeah, Murderbot always read to me as a lot more androgynous/femme than Skarsgård, certainly.
Hashtag: Not my Murderbot.
Muderbot taking off their helmet and revealing their face in the first book is such an important, pivotal moment off which the whole series springboards, though. (Leading to the character transformation that eventually results in them impersonating a human, for example.) After that fairly early scene in the first book, the helmet is off, literally and figuratively, for much of the rest of the series.
Yeah, it feels like 90% of the books are happening inside Murderbot’s head, in between the internal dialogs and a lot of the action. This makes me think of the disappointment I felt with other adaptations of similarly internal works, and ended up completely losing what made them appealing because they were so radically transformed to work on screen.
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New one just dropped, didn’t it? Last month I think. But I can never get enough of them either. And I agree with you on all points, I worry a LOT about how they’ll handle all the interiority.
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So much this. I can’t imagine a male-looking Murderbot.
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I’ve read all the Slow Horses books several times over, and the casting for that show is superb. So maybe Skarsgard will make a good Murderbot.
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I’m in the same boat. In my head Murderbot is female and I would have a hard time with a series that had a male in the lead. Would be a good role for a transgender person.
I’ve been pretty happy with Apple TV so far, Severance, Silo, Slow Horses have been great, For All Mankind is good too. Foundation is a big step away from the novels, and the fact that David Goyer is linked to both Foundation and Murderbot does not give me confidence that it will be particularly close to the books.
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Oh, oh, I missed that one! Well, I’m still hoping for more.
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NB it follows immediately after the last book, so re-reading that one before reading the latest one might make it a little clearer.
Paging Eliot Page, please come to the casting phone…
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Total fan casting of Murderbot would be Our Flag Means Death’s Vico Ortiz, who’s NB and very good at awkward emotions. But that might be just because I’m loathe to see another role go to a 6’4 straight white man. Also with Skarsgaard as Executive Producer, he might see fit to change the role to suit him.
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I read a review of the adaptation of Tristram Shandy directed by Michael Winterbottom and they said it was no more unfilmable than it was unwritable in the first place.
I thought they were clear that they didn’t identify as either in the books. It’s been a while since I read and maybe I made up the memory. That said they seem to be particularly not male!
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I think there was even a part where Murderbot had an opportunity to be equipped with genitalia during a procedure to help them pass for human more convincingly and their response was “Ew, gross! No. Just no.” So firmly asexual and nonbinary.
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Possibly the reader of the audiobooks-great, but can definitely sound male-had an impact on this choice.
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Gwendolyn Christie would have been amazing casting. I was sort of glad to hear Skarsgard, as I was assuming they’d get a muscle bound action star to play it, so I’m glad they’re at least going for some one who has acting chops.
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