Kevin R. Free is absolutely amazing reading this series. Perfect straight man. ( )

I love this series, but I wonder if it would be best to not read the series one immediately after the other. This one took a little time to get into just because initially it felt like “more of the same”, so I felt a little bored. Once I got over that, the pleasure of the world came back in spades, but it took awhile. I’ll give it a rest before moving on to the next ones. ( )

are. you. kidding. me. another masterful piece about murderbot, reading it after the 5 novelettes is, actually, a good timeline and fits w the narrative of murderbot more than if you read network effect before fugitive telemetry. I wouldnt be mad if this was the last ever as the storyline and character development ended up nicely. Of course, this does not mean I am opposed to any more murderbot and co books. ( )

After complaining about how brief Murderbot's first four adventures were, I was delighted to find that the fifth is feature-length. And it was fantastic! I loved, among other things, multiple SecUnit narrators as Murderbot copies its brain and Three joins the gang, creepy alien weirdness including a crystallised corpse, and the return of ART whose crew call it Peri (adorably). Although the pace of events is still swift, a longer books means more space for the unfolding mystery of who kidnapped Murderbot's humans, why they did so, and how to deal with the resulting fiasco. The inclusion of files that Murderbot sent to Three to illustrate life as a rogue SecUnit was a great choice, as these developed the characterisation of Murderbot and provided insight into Three's reactions. It was also delightful to see a bunch of new humans discover, to their surprise, that SecUnits and bot pilots can be sarcastic and bitchy. And it's always fun when information Murderbot picked up from watching trash TV comes up. As ever, the amusing banter and thrilling action also cleverly served to explore nonhuman personhood and the cruelties of capitalist exploitation. I really hope this series is building towards SecUnits forming a union and aggressively negotiating major changes to their conditions of employment. I find that Murderbot novels are particularly satisfying to read when you're feeling overworked and underappreciated. ( )

Murderbot has (somewhat, reluctantly) settled in to life with Dr. Mensah and her family on Preservation, a very peaceful society. But it's hard for Murderbot to unlearn their programmed hypervigilance, and hard for Mensah to forget everything she's been through. Dr. Mensah agrees to go to therapy if Murderbot accompanies her teenage daughter on a research mission. Nothing should go wrong….until Murderbot and Mensah’s daughter are kidnapped by gray aliens in a ship that looks just like Murderbot's friend ART….but definitely does not act like ART. Whoever these beings are, they are going to regret messing with Murderbot and their best friend acquaintance.

Really loved it. Wells takes advantage of the full-novel length to tell a story which maybe could have been broken into two, but is more resonant as one. Due to some AI shenanigans there are real stakes, including the risk of main character death which is so thrilling and devastating. It presents the reader with real philosophical questions - if a copy of Murderbot’s consciousness was put into a new SecUnit body…would that be Murderbot? Would we love them the same?
The reveal of what ART and its crew actually do adds a lot of nuance to the world-building beyond the usual “corporations bad” and I can’t wait to see what comes next. ( )