Book 8 of the Murderbot Diaries series. Murderbot is sent to rescue some of Mensah’s family members who have been taken hostage on an immense torus built around a dead planet. He has a new emotional status check module, which is equal parts helping and irritating. As usual, the extraction plan doesn’t go smoothly. This edition of the series is just okay. It almost seems like Wells was making it up as she went along. It feels like a side story more than a full installment. But it’s short and probably worth reading if you’ve enjoyed the series up till now.
I read all of the series in one go, so they are blended together in my mind! I remember the kidnapping and the habitat ring thing. Cool setting
I read all of the series in one go
Honestly, that might be better. I said it felt like a side story; if you treated the whole series like one book, the side story would be fine, it just doesn’t really hold up as a full book in the series.
I liked the setting as well.
Recently read this one and enjoyed it. The torus setting and world building was done well and created both a new type of space habitat while creating obstacles and story conflicts.
I thought the bits about the emotional status checks could have been explained better. If I recall correctly, Murderbot is more cyborg than robot, and has some vestigial human traits. And so the emotional status checks are to deal with those human impulses, rather than the old trope of all robots really just want to be a ”real boy”. And this book doesn’t go over that, unless I skimmed that part haha.
Overall, I found it fun and a quick read.
For sure it was related to his meat brain, which has been part of the story in prior books.
The setting was interesting and the setup was interesting enough, it just felt superficial to me. If you were going to rank all of the eight books in the series, where would this one fall?
Ooh I don’t know. I’ve read them over the past few years, but don’t recall all the story lines as individual, separate stories. As for story arcs, I like the interactions with other bots the best and think that’s where the storytelling is most inventive. The friendship with Art and mentoring of Three bring a lightness but also unique elements that are different from other sci fi. I would rather have more books about Murderbot and Art‘s adventures than about the Preservation family.
Agreed, and to be fair, one of the best elements of the series is SecUnit’s growth from extreme social anxiety, and you can’t simultaneously have consistent growth and also keep the extreme anxiety.
I couldn’t finish it. It felt like it was written by a ghost writer or AI. I really enjoyed the first few books, but I think I’m giving up on this series at this point.
I can understand that. Did you read the other recent entry, Rapport? It was actually interesting, but doesn’t even have SecUnit in it and doesn’t even take an hour to read - very short. Wells is a great writer, but if she can’t invest enough into the series she should mothball it.
I don’t think I’ve read Rapport yet. I might give it a try.
I believe it’s set somewhere between books 2 and 5, and is very much a side story, so can be read whenever chronologically.
To be fair, they’re all novellas, even when longer. Lite and fun; I enjoyed it, but yeah, it seemed Like a series of vignettes that eventually tie together.
Yeah, all short, but some have more going on, and are more well thought out, than others.