DM News:Book Review: The Murderbot Diaries - Platform Decay

[James Thomson]

This is, by some measure, the eighth Murderbot book, and if you have enjoyed all the previous ones, I think all I really need to say here is “hey, it’s another good one!” and you have pretty much everything you need to know. See, reviewing books is easy! I can go back to watching my TV shows now. However, if you haven’t read any of them before, it’s now my job to encourage you to go back and read the whole rest of the series, without giving away any of the major plot points along the way either. Wow, reviewing books is hard!

 

Okay so, Murderbot is a neurodiverse-coded humanoid robot that breaks its own programming so it doesn’t have to follow orders from the annoyingly squishy and inconsistent humans that it has been assigned to protect. Unfortunately, if anybody finds out that it is a rogue Sec Unit, it will be hunted down and forcibly recycled, so it basically still does the job anyway. Just with slightly more flexibility. Murderbot doesn’t exactly like dealing with humans - relatable content - and would rather just watch its shows instead. It even has to frequently pretend to be human to avoid detection, which is very much outside its comfort zone. Now you are pretty much up-to-date, and you even understand that reference to TV shows in the previous paragraph, I wasn’t just being weird. Was I being weird? Let’s deal with that later.

 

Not to say that there hasn’t been any character development over the course of the series, but these novellas feel like an episode of an old school TV series themselves. You typically get a fun and generally self-contained story, Where Murderbot Goes and Does A Thing.

 

In this case, the thing in question is a rescue mission to save a bunch of humans from a space station who are being threatened with indentured servitude or death by an immoral corporation, aka, a corporation. As additional complicating factors, these humans have some even smaller humans with them, Murderbot is having to deal with emotions, and it’s on the mission with a more recently liberated Sec Unit who adds yet another layer of unpredictability. You can probably guess whether the mission succeeds or not, but it’s much more about the entertaining and chaotic journey along the way. There are fewer recurring characters from the previous books, but I very much enjoyed Murderbot vs Children, which more than made up for that.

 

Sorry, Martha Wells, I could undoubtedly read another eight of these charming and funny books. Easily recommended!

 

You can find this and the other Murderbot books in our ebook store!

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