Martha Wells’ MURDERBOT DIARIES is one of my favourite book series ever. I powered through the novellas, loving each and every sentence so much, and when I first heard that a whole novel (a whole novel!!) was coming out, you can’t imagine how excited I was. Keeping all this in mind, you can imagine how high my expectations were. They were so high, in fact, that I was starting to feel certain they were going to be disappointed.
But. BUT. They were not. This book is fantastic. Incredible. It is everything a sci-fi book should be and more. This series really reminds me why I love the genre so much. At the same time it would be so wrong to reduce this series to a simple science fiction book, because it is so much more. Martha Wells talks about character relationships, about internal character conflicts, and discusses such complex moral issues that sometimes, you can almost forget that you’re in space. (You shouldn’t. The space bits are great!)
Before this turns into a complete praise-rant, let me talk a bit about the plot.
First of all: As this is the fifth part of the series, the question arises whether or not to read the first books before this one. And I’m going to go with a hesitant … probably? Officially, it’s a standalone. I do think that you would be able to understand the plot without having read the novellas, as the relevant plot points are re-capped in this book. However, you are probably going to feel a bit lost among the characters, settings, and general references in the book (then again, the novellas kind of throw you in, too). And (of course), this book heavily spoils the first parts in the series. Finally, the novellas are just really, really good, so I would definitely recommend reading them before this one. (Minor spoilers for them coming in the rest of this review, heads up!)
Everyone’s favourite Murderbot is on a research mission, looking after Dr Mensah’s daughter Amena on her first solo trip, when both of them are kidnapped by a research vessel that feels a little too familiar. Trying to find out what the hell is going on while keeping Amena safe, it realizes that the vessel is actually its casual-acquaintance-definitely-not-friend ART, which is when things to sideways in earnest.
This book is so much fun! A deadly, antisocial and recently-gone-rogue SecUnit should not feel so incredibly relatable, but for some reason, this remains the series in which I’ve gone “yes, same” the most. Murderbot’s entire “just stop being stupid and let me do my job” attitude, combined with the occasional “I’m having one emotion” moment make this narrative voice one of my absolute favourites. This book is just so entertaining to read, and especially the constant banter slash bickering between ART and Murderbot had me laughing out loud.
This is the kind of sci-fi novel that snags at your attention, that needs you to give it your full attention to understand what is happening and make connections before the characters do. It’s one of the books that give you the constant feeling that the main character/the author is slightly smarter than you, It’s FANTASTIC. The plot is so many-layered, and has a couple of moments that had me go “ooooohh!”. (And who doesn’t love going “ooohh!” at a book?) It also manages to do something new and separate from the novellas, so that even if you’ve compulsively read them (not me, of course), this book feels like a completely original, fresh thing (which, after reading this back, sounds very obvious).
This book isn’t only funny and very entertaining though. It is exciting (think fight scenes and space-ship battles), unpredictable, hold-your-heart beautiful, heartbreaking and, all in all, my new favourite sci-fi book.
Network Effect comes out May 5th. Thank you to Tor.com Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!
Orbiting Pluto 