One of this year's finalists for the Hugo Award for Best Novel is Network Effect, which is the first Murderbot novel but the fifth Murderbot book. Only I left off back at book 2 in 2019, since that was the last one to be a finalist for Best Novella. So before reading the novel, I caught up on the intervening books via the library. In addition to books 3 and 4, I also read book 6, since it chronologically precedes book 5, as well as a bonus short story that goes between books 4 and 6.
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| Published: 2018 Read: June 2021 |
I enjoyed the first Murderbot book, but was cool toward the second. I was also cool toward this. I recently read a comment on r/printSF that did a good job of summing up why; I went looking for it, but I can't find it, so I'll have to paraphrase: "Murderbot became considerably less interesting when they stopped being me: a snarky person trapped in a terrible job for an awful corporation who just wants to spend their time binge-watching television." Yet again, Murderbot finds itself pulled into saving a group of people on some expedition, and I found its protestations obnoxious and the action dull.
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| Published: 2018 Read: August 2021 |
This book contains all of the flaws of the previous two. Like the others, it's slow to start. Which can be fine; a book, even if it's a novella, doesn't have to rocket out of the gate, but so many of the opening chapters seem to be Murderbot reading newsfeeds in order to summarize exposition about corporate maneuverings to the reader, and I keep thinking there must be a better way to handle all of this. It's like when I DM and my characters have to sit through a mission briefing at the beginning where I throw a bunch of information out because I can't think of a better way to communicate it all to them. I just don't follow all the corporate stuff, and the book doesn't make me want to. Also it seems like a curious gap in the worldbuilding that the bond company so pivotal to GrayCris's problems and thus Muderbot's is never even given a name. Like in the last couple, I find Murderbot's snark less effective when it's out on its own doing stuff that it wants to do. Anyway, eventually the action started and then I was really bored. I think this book—all of them, really—overestimate how much I care about or even remember about the supporting characters from the first book.
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| Published: 2020 Acquired and read: August 2021 |
This short story was given away as a bonus to readers who preordered the Murderbot novel, and later published for free on Tor.com, and for $0.99 on Amazon. It's basically an epilogue to Exit Strategy, showing Murderbot settling into its new status quo; for the first time in the series, the perspective isn't Murderbot's own, so we get a sense of how it is perceived by others. I remember thinking it was fine enough, but it's not really a story, just some scenes that feel like set-up for a longer work, and by the time I read the next book a week later, I'd already forgotten anything that happened here.
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| Published: 2021 Read: August 2021 |
At the beginning, I was like, "Wow, this is a return to form for Murderbot." With Murderbot settling into a life on Preservation Station, it has an annoying structure for its snark to push against once again, and the narrative voice I remembered from reading All Systems Red way back when once again shone clearly. But then like halfway through, the book kicked into action mode, and I lost interest.
Plus: lots of people call this a locked-room murder mystery, but... even though it's about someone investigating a murder, I didn't really think it read like a murder mystery, more like a police procedural. I guess that's not really the book's fault, but I think I would have liked the book better if it had been about Murderbot talking to suspects more, instead of Murderbot fighting a CombatBot.
Also, and this is a weird sentence I never thought I'd utter, but I am sick to death of CamelCase.
So, uh, I am hyped to read the novel, I guess!
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