Rating: 4 stars
CBR16 Bingo: Rage (The Murderbot Diaries are all the rage all over the bookish internet, in addition, there's a lot of rage-inducing behaviour from the evil corporation in the book)
Spoiler warning! This is book 7 in the series, and absolutely not the place to start reading. This book will not make as much sense if it's your first encounter with Murderbot. You should have read at least All Systems Red, Artificial Condition and the previous novel, Network Effect to have the requisite backstory for this book. It's actually impossible for me to review this without mentioning what happened in Network Effect.
Murderbot is not OK. Murderbot cannot entirely trust its own instincts and reflexes anymore. That makes it very difficult for Murderbot to do its job, which is to provide security for its crew, who are currently working together with the crew of the Perihelion (better known as ART to its friends) to protect the rights of the colonists already living on planet they discovered in the last book. Unfortunately, the Barish-Estranza corporation wants the planet and its resources and has sent additional ships and SecUnits to try to persuade the colonists to sign contracts for "rescue and protection", which would in effect mean they would be signing away their lives to Barish-Estranza, being stuck labouring for them for the rest of their natural lives to pay for said "rescue and protection".
The fact that there are multiple groups of colonists living on the planet, spread out in different factions, further complicates the job of our intrepid good guys. Murderbot has to accompany some of its and ARTs crews to a remote location on the planet to inform a separate faction of colonists about the sinister motives of the Barish-Estranza representatives, who seem like they come offering safety, relocation and transportation to a new home. Because of [redacted] Murderbot is worried it might lose control, but in the end, it turns out that Murderbot's previous work to disconnect itself from its Control Module, not to mention its tremendous knowledge of entertainment and media is what might sway the colonists away from the tempting, but duplicitous offers of the Barish-Estranza corporation.
None of the instalments of the Murderbot Diaries are bad, but after all the action and emotional developments of Network Effect this book felt a lot more like a filler episode before more significant plot hopefully happens in future stories. It was nice to see Murderbot's people and ARTs crew interacting and getting along, and I was especially impressed with the solution our ragtag crew came up with to thwart the nefarious corporation. I had a good time reading this, but I doubt it's one I'm going to be re-reading a lot.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
