Sci-fi author Martha Wells on writing a series about a robot that calls itself Murderbot

Earlier this year, I read the first installment of Martha Wells’s Murderbot series, All Systems Red, a novella about a dour, cranky security robot that would rather watch soap operas than interact with people. Oh, and it murdered a bunch of people on an earlier assignment. Next year, Wells will be back with a new installment of the series, Artificial Condition.
In All Systems Red, Murderbot is tasked with protecting a group of scientists on a distant planet, and discovers that another miss