paperback, 352 pages
English language
Published March 29, 2021 by Tor.com.
Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel.
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
She's perfected the MurderBot recipe: awkward AI-AI relationship, friendly humans, emotional discomfort, clever conflict.
Reading time 3 days, 117 pages/day
This was a great book. The familiar characters and settings of the Murderbot series, but a longer tale to really flesh out the growing relationship between it, ART, and other humans. It also ends with the promise of more adventures, too! If you're a fan of Murderbot you should pick this one up.
For a full review, check out my blog: www.goodreads.com/review/edit/52381770-network-effect
Full length Murderbot! And it totally delivered as you can no doubt tell from the score I have given it.
Murderbot is such a strongly realised creation that it could carry an average story on it's own, fortunately this novel has a strong story to go along with Murderbot. The author wisely keeps the shenanigans at a small enough scale that you can relate along with Murderbot's increasing confidence in being free. This is still Space Opera however so there are still plenty of bangs for your buck.
The whole series remains highly recommended but they really need to do an omnibus of the first 4 novellas at a reasonable price.
2022 Re-read
Score still stands. I must say I particularly took my time with the last third on this read through and it paid off with some new gems that were in there. This is a very strong novel, …
Full length Murderbot! And it totally delivered as you can no doubt tell from the score I have given it.
Murderbot is such a strongly realised creation that it could carry an average story on it's own, fortunately this novel has a strong story to go along with Murderbot. The author wisely keeps the shenanigans at a small enough scale that you can relate along with Murderbot's increasing confidence in being free. This is still Space Opera however so there are still plenty of bangs for your buck.
The whole series remains highly recommended but they really need to do an omnibus of the first 4 novellas at a reasonable price.
2022 Re-read
Score still stands. I must say I particularly took my time with the last third on this read through and it paid off with some new gems that were in there. This is a very strong novel, just quality entertainment from start to finish.
Enjoyable, but I got bogged down in the middle for a good while: I suspect I prefer this kind of story at novella length.
So, this is substantially better than the first novella - to which I gave 1 star and would have been a 'did not finish' had it not been for a book club. There's a proper plot this time, a bit of character development, and some interaction between characters rather than a tedious monologue. It was easy to read and I got through it in a few evenings.
However, the main problem I have with this book is that the author has chosen to go with first person narration, so everything is told from the viewpoint of the main character (hence diaries). This has three potential issues:
1. It is, in my opinion, harder to get right than third person.
2. You don't find out about anything that doesn't involve the main character. (This is what makes diaries of any sort sometimes difficult to read, as you potentially miss big chunks …
So, this is substantially better than the first novella - to which I gave 1 star and would have been a 'did not finish' had it not been for a book club. There's a proper plot this time, a bit of character development, and some interaction between characters rather than a tedious monologue. It was easy to read and I got through it in a few evenings.
However, the main problem I have with this book is that the author has chosen to go with first person narration, so everything is told from the viewpoint of the main character (hence diaries). This has three potential issues:
1. It is, in my opinion, harder to get right than third person.
2. You don't find out about anything that doesn't involve the main character. (This is what makes diaries of any sort sometimes difficult to read, as you potentially miss big chunks of the story).
3. You have to like the main character.
Wells is a competent author so number 1 is ticked off. Number 2 can be an issue in some stories, but given that the humans in this one just sit around arguably/crying until Murderbot tells them what to do, the fact that you don't hear anything from their perspective isn't a huge loss.
Number 3 however is the killer for me, as I just don't like Murderbot. It reminds me of a more annoying and less funny version of Kryten from Red Dwarf - another android which has broken its programming (yes Murderbot has organic components, but given that it seems to be able to recover from any injury I'm slightly dubious as to how important those are). Like Kryten, Murderbot is still subservient to the person who freed it from its programming, and hasn't worked out its place in the world. The fact that it is completely introverted and doesn't like interacting with people (or other systems) is a bit of a problem when interacting with others is what your main character needs to do to keep the story going. If Murderbot gradually progressed and opened up it wouldn't be too bad, but by the end of book 5 it's still stuck in its shell and refusing to come out.
Oh and Murderbot's continual asides (and asides to asides) at the end of sentences is REALLY ANNOYING.
Overall, if this was the first book in a series I might read the next one, but I really expected more from book 5.
It turns out I've been up all night finishing off this book, thank Murderbot it's still lockdown.
Was it worth pre-ordering? Yes. Did it blow my expectations? Totally.
Having the three narratives at one point took a tiny bit of adjustment, but for me it genuinely made the action come more to life. I've also noticed that things tend to be described just enough that you're able to set your own visuals along with the series.
I certainly hope there is another Murderbot novel in the works, as I've been sucked in deep to this series
