The first Murderbot novel, Network Effect, will arrive on May 5th. To prepare for that joyous FULL-LENGTH day, our titular self-aware, misanthropic, TV-obsessed SecUnit itself, and ART, held an Instagram Live AMA.
The pair talked love, hate, fanfiction, feelings, quarantine tips, lemon cake, human flesh, dogs, robot babies, and, of course, Sanctuary Moon.
Hi Murderbot and ART! Do you have preferred pronouns that we should use for you? ART: It/its
Any advice for being stuck indoors for a long time? MB: Enjoy it while you can. ART: I’ve never been inside anything.
Lemon Cake or Human Flesh? ART: Engaging tracer protocol. Armed drones standing by.
What do you hate the most about people? MB: Is that a rhetorical question? ART: You don’t mean rhetorical. MB: I mean something that sounds like rhetorical.
Murderbot, have you considered adopting a human name for yourself? MB: No.
Hi ART! How do you feel about the nickname Murderbot gave you? ART: What nickname?
From Goblin, age 8: Murderbot, what did Hostile One look like exactly? Is it cute? MB: I mostly saw the inside of its mouth, but when its tail disappeared down the tunnel, that looked pretty cute.
From Goblin, age 8: ART, Do you love Murderbot? ART: Yes, but don’t tell anyone.
Hello Murderbot! When your diaries are turned into a serial, who would you like to play as you? MB: Istarta Sree from Lineages of the Sun, the new one not the old one.
Hey Murderbot! My dog loves watching media and wants to know if you and ART like dogs. MB: I’ve never seen a dog.
Buy it Now
ART, when will we see you again? We miss you! ART: May 5, 2020 by your local calendar.
Not a question, but I love you MURDERBOT & ART is awesome! ART: Thank you. You get to live. MB: It’s kidding. ART: Okay.
Can you and ART just have robot babies already? ART: That information is redacted by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.
Does Murderbot use any of it’s hard currency to upgrade its education modules? MB: Would you?
ART, what did you think of Murderbot when you first got to know it? ART: That information is redacted.
Does ART save media downloads for a possible later encounter with Murderbot? ART: Stop asking for redacted information.
What would Murderbot think about further hanging out with Mensah’s small human? MB: Small humans often have access to obscure entertainment feeds.
ART, any additional makeovers you would like to give Murderbot? ART: That presupposes I care what it looks like now.
Do Murderbot or ART write fanfiction? ART: Again with the redacted.
Does Murderbot like fantasy or prefer just regular fiction? MB: If it’s fiction, I prefer it.
What are your favourite fictional aliens? MB: Any that don’t actually exist.
Murderbot, please recommend your top 3 binge worthy shows (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO)! Thank you! MB: The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, Timestream Defenders Orion, and Lineages of the Sun. ART: World Hoppers. MB: Okay. ART: I think the human means locally accessible media. MB: The Expanse, The Outsider, Altered Carbon.
What’s your favorite episode of Worldhoppers? MB: The one where the ship had a hull breach and they had to repair it while fighting off the alien mind-control device and ART was a big giant baby about it. ART: The ones with the ship.
Favorite Story arc in Sanctuary Moon? MB: Season 28, the whole thing with the rival Corporate Supervisor, and when it turned out Sparga Delfin had been replaced by a clone in episode 184, and they had to go rescue them and all the clone babies.
What is their favorite episode of Sanctuary Moon about? MB: The one where they found out the Terraforming Supervisor was still alive, and behind the whole plot to deregulate the colony’s mining franchise which had been blamed on the Colony Solicitor, so she and her bodyguard and the Mech Transport Crewmember and the Mystery Person from the level 7 airshaft and the Food Service Staffing Manager fake her death, and she comes to her own memorial service. ART: I didn’t like that one.
Which is your favorite episode of Sanctuary Moon to recommend as a gateway to the show? MB: The first one. It’s the only one that gives all the detail about the Colony Solicitor’s secret backstory as a corporate espionage agent/opera production manager and you need that to understand the rest of the story.
What really happened on episode 231 of Sanctuary Moon? MB: It was clearly a dream. ART: You’re wrong. MB: So when the Mech Pilot was attacked by his evil duplicate who tried to hit him with a giant hammer and then disappeared, you think that was supposed to be real? ART: It was an artistic choice.
Who’s your endgame pairing on Sanctuary Moon? MB: I skip the pairing parts.
If you were trapped on ART/in quarantine *without* SM, how would you entertain yourself? MB: Watching other media. ART: What do you mean “trapped?”
Hey ART! Who is your favorite human? ART: REDACTED. MB: It’s Iris.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
