HOME: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, our first look into Dr. Mensah -and- NETWORK EFFECT, first full-length Murderbot novel

NETWORK EFFECT
MARTHA WELLS (Murderbot #5)
Tor.com Publishing
$11.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4.9* of five

WINNER OF THE HUGO FOR BEST SERIES & THE HUGO FOR BEST NOVEL, 2021 WORLDCON: DisCon III!

WINNER: BEST NOVEL, 2020 NEBULA AWARDS!

The Publisher Says: Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel.

You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.

Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.

I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. SUPPORT YOUR LIBRARIES, FOLKS! THE PANDEMIC AIN'T THE ONLY REASON TO GO THERE.

My Review: When you get to the moment in reading a series of stories that you think you know what's coming next, and then you're kinda right but a whole lot wrong, that's when you know for sure you're in the right place at the right time.

I knew for sure I'd get Murderbot being its deeply cynical, snarky self, breaking the fourth wall at will and to great effect.

{We're in the shit because of} their hired security service Palisade making an extremely bad decision to punch my ex-owner bond company in the operating funds by attacking one of its gunships. (The company is paranoid and greedy and cheap but also ruthless, methodical, and intensely violent when it thinks it’s being threatened.)
–and–
So that was what had happened before the survey. Now we’re here, ready for the next major disaster. (Spoiler warning.)

I didn't realize, though, that the ART (acronym; you know already or you need to find out for yourself) and Murderbot would make this read the emotional rollercoater it is. (Yes, of course there are quotes to make this obvious but I can't spoiler-tag on my blog. Go here if you're that curious. But it's a MAJOR spoiler!)
—but there is this that I *can* quote, spoken by Murderbot after a serious, serious event takes place, one that changes the entire stakes of the novel: "My performance reliability had leveled out at 89 percent. Not great, but I could work with it. I still hadn’t identified the source of the drop. I’d taken multiple projectile hits without having that kind of steady drop." Which is a theme developed so well in this full-length novel. The problem of grief, of rage and loss, is universal; Author Wells hasn't, at any point in the series, hidden her cards in this regard. But the stakes, the sheer centrality of loss and rage and grief, take the Up escalator in this novel. Maybe Ratthi, a human and client of Murderbot's over the course of multiple stories, says it best: “Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don’t have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now.”

Amen, Brother Ratthi. If anyone who's read more of the series (and if you haven't what the heck are you doing reading this review?!) wonders about how huge the change of tenor in this full-length novel is, I offer this:

Ratthi had said, “I think you should let it go for a while, at least until we get ourselves out of this situation. SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to discuss its feelings.”

This is why Ratthi is my friend.
–and–
(If I got angry at myself for being angry I would be angry constantly and I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else.) (Wait, I think I am angry constantly. That might explain a lot.)

Murderbot. Calling a human, a (former) client, a being under its protection, a friend is a moment to make a person pause. Then for Murderbot to acknowledge, with great precision, its emotional state...!

Then again this is the thing about reading this series, unlike reading many, many others: Author Wells is making something clear to us, in her inimitable sly way, that not many of us think about. She demands that, in loving and accepting the reality of Murderbot, that we contemplate the source of Murderbot's conundrum. Murderbot is a possession, chattel, a Thing:

(I know, it’s a logo, but I hate it when humans and augmented humans ruin things for no reason. Maybe because I was a thing before I was a person and if I’m not careful I could be a thing again.)
–and–
And of course the humans had trouble understanding that your governor module suddenly deciding to melt your brain wasn’t something you could rules-lawyer your way out of.

Like the SecUnit that Murderbot began its existence being and Dr. Mensah rescued it from continuing to be, there was a device installed in its organic brain that could cause it immense pain or simply end its existence...can't give a Thing power, like weaponry-power and tactical nous, without safeguards....

So be clear: By taking on this addictively funny series, you're taking on a level of self-reflection that, while salubrious and even vital it may be, it is also deeply uncomfortable:

Just because we’re both rogue SecUnits doesn’t mean we’re going to be friends, but I knew if it went back, it would be dead. I’d hacked my governor module and kept doing my job because I didn’t know what else to do (except you know, a murderous rampage, but murderous rampages are overrated and interfere with one’s ability to keep watching media) but that was different from escaping and then going back.

I said, “Because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.”
–and–
I’m letting you see all this because I want you to know what I am and what I can do. I want you to know who targetControlSystem is fucking with right now. I want you to know if you help me, I’ll help you, and that you can trust me. Now here’s the code to disable your governor module.

This is Murderbot caring for a fellow SecUnit whose existence as chattel, a Thing, it is trying to end. There is no guarantee that ending the other's slavery will make it a fellow seeker after the Meaning of Freedom; it won't even guarantee that there won't be mayhem and disaster to clean up after. But it will for sure and certain mean that the other SecUnit won't be under any compulsion to do anything.

No matter what that costs, it's worth everything and it's worth risking everything to give or to get.

I've failed to give this novel a perfect score of five-out-of-five. The reason is simple to the point of being petty: The pace is irregular and it's not because the story needs it to be. Author Wells has written numerous novels before this (here's her bibliography) so there is no reason this novel should suffer from an avoidable fault. There are some scenes whose nature means they could've been cut or cut down (eg, the invaders the Scooby-group need to fight get more screen time than is necessary for non-repeating characters), there are some repeated references to Murderbot's happiness that it has no digestive system that were over-done...but none of these things did more than ding the paint on my gloriously chromed, befinned behemoth of Joy at spending a whole novel with Murderbot, ART, and the annoying humans they hang with.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HOME: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
MARTHA WELLS (Murderbot #4.5)
Tor.com
FREE online read!

WINNER OF THE HUGO FOR BEST SERIES, 2021 WORLDCON: DisCon III!

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: This short story is told from the point of view of Dr. Mensah and follows the events in Exit Strategy.

THIS IS A TOR.COM FREE READ. THANK YOU FOR MAKING SUCH WONDERFUL WORK FREE FOR ANYONE TO READ, GENTLES ALL.

My Review:

Because they are all refugees in the Preservation Alliance, descended from people who were left to die because rescue was deemed not cost-effective.

Which is why I read the Murderbot series the instant I can get the books. This is a short freebie that's just a tick before Network Effect, and it's deeply refreshing to read something from Dr. Mensah's PoV.

Not that I don't adore Murderbot! I do! But breaking out of the one PoV that we have on the Corporation Rim is a breath of fresh air.

The Corporation Rim has always been a slave state, though it calls its institutionalized slavery “contract labor.”

It is through Dr. Mensah's clarity that I feel so seen in my hatred of this system's brutal, dehumanizing, and revoltingly deeply entrenched dominance of the hearts and minds I must live among, as Preservation is a fictional construct. It would be the work of but a moment for me to apply for asylum or whatever they call it to get to Preservation were it real.

It’s about being treated as a thing, isn’t it. Whether that thing is a hostage of conditional value, or a very expensively designed and equipped enslaved machine/organic intelligence. You’re a thing, and there is no safety.

When you exist at the whim of the electorate, as people like me...disabled, unhomed, elderly, infirm...must do, you're a thing. A profit point. An expense center. Not yourself, not someone with a lifetime's issues and lessons. I'm fortunate that I live in a place that allows me to be as independent as possible, and that I did enough useful work for enough years that my (HUGELY reduced in value) investment in government debt affords me the relative safety of housing, medical care, and therapies that I need. Had I stayed in Texas, had I been darker of skin hue, had I not had the mind-boggling good fortune to have my breakdown while talking to the one person who could, and would, and did help me...well, I'd be dead, and that's just the facts.

It's why I identify so deeply with Murderbot: We had all the right things go exactly right at the right time or we'd simply have ceased to exist.

And {Dr. Mensah} tells herself: you’re being very foolish. Because you were a hostage for a period of days, and it was a minor inconvenience compared to what Murderbot— No, SecUnit; she’s never been given permission to use that private name. What SecUnit went through.

And if someone else was in her position, she would tell them how unhelpful comparisons like that are, that fear is fear.

But you're making one right now. You can't help it; it's human nature. One person with whom I am no longer friends said to me, "stop being so selfish and think of how much worse it is for my (Hispanic) people!"

Invalidation = abuse. Always, in all ways.

And that is what Author Wells does so eloquently by not doing it directly: She holds up your status as abuser while acknowledging your status as the abused. Murderbot...SecUnit to Dr. Mensah and the meatsacks inhabiting its spacetime...isn't kidding around with its self-granted yclepture. It was the more harmed, in my opinion, by its status as legally insentient property being thrust on it from...birth?...its creation, anyway...(aka "chattel slavery") but it isn't innocent of abusive, life-denying behavior towards others.

Do moral dilemmas come more tightly coiled up on themselves than this? And breathes there an author whose exploration of these intense and weighty issues is so delightfully deft and assuredly airy than Author Wells?

No.

THE MURDERBOT DIARIES, four gifts from Author Martha Wells for your isolation reading

from marthawells.com

WINNER OF THE HUGO FOR BEST SERIES, 2021 WORLDCON: DisCon III!

I think you'd have to be a troglodyte (therefore unlikely to have developed a blog-reading habit) to have escaped the Murderbot frenzy of the past three years. I've been remiss in buying them, since I am what is clinically described as "destitute," but I've borrowed library copies and chuckled (and sniffed!) along for the past three years. However, the release of Network Effect in May 2020 (place your pre-orders now! Authors need our support during the pandemic) led me to want to re-read the entire series. I'd planned to do this one book a month...All Systems Red in January, Artificial Condition in February, Rogue Protocol in March, Exit Strategy in April...but damme if it wasn't just too too tempting to get them all and gobble them down NOW when All Systems Red went on sale.

These novellas are absolutely perfect plague-reads. Long enough and involving enough to wile an afternoon away; enough of them to form a real attachment to the world Author Wells has built; a longer book in the near term; and still can fit the reads into a schedule without busting it! All four Murderbot Novellas are available at all imaginable retailers. You should visit the Author's Murderbot site for links to your preferred bookery. I really hope that you will, and not only because I love every single one of y'all who reads my reviews but because Author Wells could use our support in this Time of Plague.

Note! These reviews are not intended to give you spoilers but, if you have not read past a particular book in the series, please don't read reviews for the later books. I have left out the usual "The Publisher Says" portion of my review format because there are four books in this review. Follow any link to Author Wells's Murderbot Page if you aren't familiar with the set-up of the series.

My Reviews:

of All Systems Red...4* of five, what a great way to start a series
There is no pleasure like revisiting a read and discovering you like it *more* the second time around. I knew Murderbot was a terrific PoV character. I remembered the exhilaration of the ending. I am still delighted by Dr. Mensah, and I want to live on Preservation like, tomorrow, thank you please.

I'm so glad I did this reread. The pleasures of this slender expedition into a future both darker and brighter than the present I am so very disgruntled with are out of proportion to the time Author Wells spends setting them up. My trip to this future can now be continued; I expect, though, that I'd best hold back my usual urge to binge every available scrap before the novel comes out in May 2020. I want to savor these pleasures. Hell of an achievement, ma'am, to make a sentient but still pleasant cyborg with a murderous past into such a sweetiedarling woolly lambkin honey pie.

of Artificial Condition...4* of five, so much fun to read back-to-back!
Murderbot's shocking actions at the end of All Systems Red come into sharp focus in this excellent romp. I love Murderbot. Its journey to becoming fully sapient, instead of merely sentient, is full of the most delightful lines and aperçus:

I guess you can’t tell a story from the point of view of something that you don’t think has a point of view.
–and–
“Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.”

I can't help but feel that sapience is its gift already, it just doesn't know it. It takes more than sentience to desire truth over comfort:

“I need to know if the incident occurred due to a catastrophic failure of my governor module. That’s what I think happened. But I need to know for sure.”
I hesitated, but what the hell, {ART} already knew everything else. “I need to know if I hacked my governor module in order to cause the incident.”
–and–
And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this. It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.

Author Wells, I salute you. This tale, this entire series, is some very, very high quality misdirection! You're teaching us, you clever clogs, while making us laugh and diverting our executive functions with innocuous-looking packaging.

The last words, in service of my point, belong to ART the, um, well let's say Murderbot's use of the acronym is both apt and necessary (and in the end is used by ART as its own name, in a very under-the-radar throwaway at the end of this volume):
Young humans can be impulsive. The trick is keeping them around long enough to become old humans. This is what my crew tells me and my own observations seem to confirm it.

Mommydaddy Murderbot concurs.

of Rogue Protocol...4.75* of five, damn near perfect
Oh, Murderbot!

Oh my poor, sweet Murderbot. Your pain is real to me because Author Wells is skilled in the art of inflicting pain on innocent readers. Best of the three stories by a good margin.

Murderbot continues its quest to fully understand the horrible life it's led as a slave, one sentient enough to be autonomous but still able to be customized to perform different complex security functions (which implies being programmable, therefore malleable, therefore manipulable in the vilest of ways) but not allowed to develop its sapience. Author Wells does her usual bang-up job of making Murderbot an excellent companion on a picaresque quest to install sapience into its systems:

I didn’t have the combat stealth module anyway (I had never been upgraded with it, probably due to...the whole “killing all the clients” thing, go figure)...
–and–
Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
–and–
The core cutter had powered up and accessed my feed to deliver a canned warning and a handy set of directions. Why yes, I did want to disengage the safety protocols, thanks for asking.

The issue at hand this time, the reason Murderbot sweet-talked a fairly basic pilot bot into allowing it aboard a human-infested transport to a far outpost on the Corporation Rim...pause to appreciate that as Murderbot's quest for information (what humans call answers) to process what and why it became Murderbot in the first place that it travels in space beyond the reach of the corporation-first norms into low-security humans-first territory...is to collect more data on GrayCris. These corporate malefactors ("We were talking about GrayCris here, whose company motto seemed to be “profit by killing everybody and taking their stuff,” thinks Murderbot) are in the middle of a lawsuit war with Dr. Mensah and the entire Preservation team that bought Murderbot in All Systems Red.

The discoveries Murderbot makes are, well, unsurprising in that malefeasance and lawbreaking are involved. They are appalling in that corporate skulduggery explicitly involves murdering people to save the corporation money. Author Wells doesn't look on a safe, secure, "prosperous" world with no privacy and less respect for human dignity with the eye of faith. She sees what she sees and reports back to us. I mean, it's all a story, right, but it's not based on nothing. Is it.

So Murderbot visits beyond the Corporation Rim to discover what it suspects is bombshell information. Murderbot wants to help the human that bought it not in order to use it but in order to stop it being used. Murderbot applied its sentience to leave, it's not proper to say "escape," Dr. Mensah to begin its quest for sapience without knowing in advance that...

...apparently once you start, you can’t just stop. I wasn’t going to just send the geo pod data to Dr. Mensah. I was taking it to her personally. I was going back. Then I laid down on the floor and started Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon from episode one.

Murderbot's heading home. Family needs it. And Family comes first.

of Exit Strategy...5* of five, there's a beautiful glow about this read, like polished sterling
This is the point in the series when Murderbot comes in from the cold. Nothing about this read is emotionally easy because Murderbot is so confused. Until the organic memories can be fully integrated into its systems, emotions will keep flooring it. Author Wells gets all five stars for this entry in the series because that integration is not an easy thing for Murderbot, or in fact for the organic being reading its diary.

(Possibly I was overthinking this. I do that; it’s the anxiety that comes with being a part-organic murderbot. The upside was paranoid attention to detail. The downside was also paranoid attention to detail.)
–and–
I was having an emotion, and I hate that. I’d rather have nice safe emotions about shows on the entertainment media; having them about things real-life humans said and did just led to stupid decisions like {the one Murderbot is telling us about}.
–and–
Huh, why did I like Sanctuary Moon so much? I had to pull the memory from my archive, and what I saw there startled me. “It’s the first one I saw. When I hacked my governor module and picked up the entertainment feed. It made me feel like a person.” Yeah, that last part shouldn’t have come out, but with all the security-feed monitoring I was doing, I was losing control of my output. I closed my archive. I really needed to get around to setting that one-second delay on my mouth.

Wonderful. Truly, and simply, wonderful prose, wonderful plotting, wonderful world-building, and a wonderful, satisfying character arc.