I will try to rephrase that here as spoilery discussion questions.Ĭlick below for totally serious discussion questions that are not all just squeeingĭid you not think Murderbot and ART are the sweetest with how they care about each other? I was not expecting it to get that mushyĭid anyone else get a bit emotional at the end when Murderbot watches what everyone was willing to do for it? I was lucky for once that I got to read a new release about the same time as a lot of my friends, so there was a lot of spoilery squeeing in group chat. Very much looking forward to the next installment, especially as this was such a jump in how Murderbot thinks of itself and those around it. I love how it’s not performative, just comes from a place of genuine dryness. There’s also great sarcastic robot snark. We got to see some of the life on Preservation, Murderbot got to watch live shows, found out more about alien remnants and bit about general space-politics. I really liked how this book did more legwork on worldbuilding.

And those other two PoVs, I love them to bits. We even get 3 different PoVs in the heat of the final showdown, because we’ve got things happening in 3 different places at the same time. It’s so strange cause in my head I kept comparing it to the very concise and streamlined novellas, it’s like I couldn’t even tell until now how focussed they were. What happened to this ship? And that ship? And how did those people get there? And of course, the old, “which evil corporation did what”. There is just so much going, so many mysteries to solve and puzzles to figure out (I got none of them, I am the worst reader for mysteries). There’s a bit of head switching between present-day Murdebot and Murderbot’s memory of an event that took place between Exit Strategy and Network Effect, which I found really confusing to start, but was pretty blown away with how it came together, and when it was used. And there is a lot of dealing with feelings, it’s great seeing how far Murderbot and its relationships have come. Poor thing really struggled to keep it together. I’m sure you know how much Murderbot hates dealing with feelings. It jumped straight into a dangerous, mysterious and highly emotional situation. In the novellas they always blended together a bit.Īnd this novel was so packed. I really hope we get more novels in this world, because it was great finally having enough space to get to know the secondary characters. It ended up being a lot more wholesome and sweet that a novel about a grumpy killer robot had any right to be. Network Effect, the new Murderbot novel, was everything I wanted and needed. This review will probably make 0 sense if you haven’t read the novellas, but doesn’t contain spoilers except for the hidden ones.

Murderbot network effect