CBR18 Book 24: "Platform Decay" by Martha Wells

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Monthly Keyword 26: Decay

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026.

Murderbot (who has installed a mental health module now, and keeps doing Emotion checks on itself) is on a rescue mission on a large artificial planet controlled mostly by Barish-Estranza. What starts out as needing to find and escort three people from the hostile territory becomes a lot more complicated when Murderbot is forced to agree to locate and rescue an additional group of people, some of whom are juveniles (I love how Murderbot refers to children) as well. As you can imagine, Murderbot, who is deeply uncomfortable with most people, is especially discomforted by children. 

I don't really want to go into further details about the plot of this one, because it's much better if you don't know too many specifics. As is often the case with new instalments of The Murderbot Diaries, this book starts very abruptly, and it takes a few chapters to understand what is really going on. And that's part of the joy of it. I won't reveal who Murderbot has been sent to rescue, and it would be a major plot spoiler to reveal who is in the second group.

It's been years since System Collapse was released, and to say that I was excited when I discovered I had been granted an ARC for this is an understatement. High-pitched squeals of excitement may have been heard by the rest of my family, and there may have been some bouncing up and down on the sofa. However, I also knew that if I read it immediately, I would forget a lot by the time I needed to review it, so I saved it until just before release, so everything would be fresh in my memory. 

Murderbot's voice (which is not for everyone, I have come to realise) is so clear from the very first page, and even when you're not exactly sure what is happening, it's just so comforting to be back in Murderbot's presence and let the story wash over you. I loved Murderbot's new Emotion checks (it has been through some stuff in the past few books) and how it is begrudingly forced to admit to itself (and us, the readers) that it has people it cares about now. That being a rogue and lonely SecUnit isn't exactly the best way to be.

This book is very funny, but also emotional and action-packed and as always, deeply anti-capitalist. I laughed a lot while reading it, and while Murderbot would clearly hate it, it is still my favourite snarky artificial intelligence. 

Judging a book by its cover: For the entire series, the covers have been Murderbot, in its distinctive suit, clearly in the middle of some action. Sometimes, the location is in space; sometimes, it's obviously on a planet. On some, Murderbot has company; on others, it is alone. On this cover, Murderbot appears to be in a shaft of some sort, with a ladder. It gives the reader a hint of what's going on in the story, without spoiling anything. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Books 35-41: "The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells (all the novellas and short stories)

Total page count: 807 pages

My original reviews and ratings for the first four novellas can be found here.

CBR17 Bingo: Favourite (goes for the whole series, and the protagonist)

All Systems Red

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: First in a series

It's been five years since I first read The Murderbot Diaries, and it was interesting to revisit the original novella. This was selected as the January selection for my real-life book club (with the option to read the other three if people had time). While a lot of the members really enjoyed the story, it was agreed that this story is mostly set up and quite unsatisfying if you don't keep going with the series to discover more of Murderbot as a character. There were some who found Murderbot as a narrator quite annoying, while others (like me) found Murderbot's misanthropic attitude and desire to just be left alone to watch its stories deeply relatable. 

Even now, having read the whole series, I still find a lot of the supporting characters who are introduced in this story a bit confusing, and they mostly blend together for me. Doctor Mensah is an obvious exception since Murderbot respects her so much. 

The structure of the novella is also a bit wonky. It starts relatively slow, and then there's a series of dramatic events before the story ends very abruptly, possibly too quickly. 

I also feel like I should address the Apple TV adaptation of this novella, which manages to capture the tone and feel of the story while making some pretty massive changes. Quite a few of the supporting characters have been cut (the fact that it works as well as it does suggests that Wells probably didn't need the Pres Aux team to be as big as it is in the novella - no wonder I keep getting the characters confused). Skarsgård plays an excellent Murderbot, even though he's not Murderbot as I imagine it (the Murderbot in my head is female presenting, more like Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth rather than tall, handsome and Scandinavian), and I can't help but think that our favourite SecUnit's extreme social awkwardness is portrayed so well since Skarsgård is so familiar with Scandinavians and our weird introverted way of being. No one in Scandinavia likes being talked to by strangers or having FEELINGS shared all over them. 

One of my favourite things about the adaptation is the choice to have scenes from Murderbot's favourite media shown to the viewers. If I wasn't already pretty sure I'd be hooked on Sanctuary Moon, seeing the brief snippets of it on screen confirms it. There is still an episode left to go, but so far, I think the show may be dealing with the confusing end section of the story better than in the novella. Time will tell. 

Artificial Condition

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: A novella

I remembered this as one of my favourites of the novellas, and upon revisiting it, knowing how the relationship between Murderbot and ART (A**hole Research Transport) develops in later stories, it was extra satisfying to see how their friendship began. Considering Murderbot is usually the smartest individual in the room, and keeps being exasperated by the silly humans around it, it was fun to see it befriend someone who is certainly on the same level, and probably intellectually even more impressive. Reading about ART and Murderbot bonding through watching Murderbot's various shows might also have struck a particular chord with me, as that is how my husband and I met (watching shows in various friends' dorm rooms), and we still spend a lot of quality time enjoying shows together. 

Another thing I'd forgotten about this book was how quickly Murderbot, so intent on going off on adventures of its own, trying to avoid annoying emotional attachments, so quickly finds a new group of vulnerable, squishy humans it needs to protect. The humans in this story are, if possible, even more clueless in the big, ruthless corporate world than the Pres Aux team, and that is saying something. 

I'm also very relieved that Apple TV have announced that there will be a second season of Murderbot, so viewers get to watch the friendship of ART and Murderbot develop on screen. Hopefully, we'll also get glimpses of more of Murderbot's favourite shows. 

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy - 3.5 stars

This surprise story was announced by TOR only days before the first season of Murderbot aired, and it was launched online after the last episode aired. Considering it's chronologically set after Artificial Condition, it's not like it contains direct spoilers. 

Considering we don't actually get to meet ART again in the Murderbot universe until Network Effect, it was a really nice bonus given to the fans from Martha Wells, a story showing us ART/Perihelion with its own crew a short while after it and Murderbot part ways in the second novella. I'm a huge fan of ART/Peri, and seeing the scary transport interacting with its own crew in this story was an unexpected delight. 

Rogue Protocol

I remembered this story as the one I liked the least of the original four novellas when I first read the series. Upon a re-read, I was surprised to see how incredibly action-packed it was compared to the other novellas, and it's in this story that we really see why Murderbot may have chosen that name for itself.

Going back to the now-abandoned mining colony, where it suspected it had committed a massacre, proves to it that a large group of people got killed, but it also proves to Murderbot how right it was to disable its governor module, so it can never be made to do things like that ever again. Any murders it will be doing in the future will be to protect others, not just senseless violence at the orders of a greedy corporation. 

It's quite clear from some of the early Murderbot stories that our favourite SecUnit has some not always pleasant prejudices towards other robots, and in this story, Murderbot is forced to confront some of these. One of the reasons Murderbot felt it had to leave its favourite human, Doctor Mensah, and the Pres Aux team was because it didn't want to become someone's pet droid. Having been basically enslaved in its service with the Corporation, before it hacked its governor module and went rogue, Murderbot, even with the extremely progressive view of the members of the Pres Aux team, it just can't really believe that humans could feel towards robots as they do humans. So it's good for its personal development and continued journey towards some kind of personhood to have some of those notions disproved.

Mild spoiler warning - this is probably the novella with the most bummer ending of all of them. 

Exit Strategy

Having discovered during its wanderings, trying to find itself, that GreyCris, the evil corporation that tried to kill the Preservation Alliance crew in the first novella, has kidnapped Doctor Mensah, Murderbot (who really shouldn't have feelings for anything or anyone) feels compelled to return for a rescue mission. By now, Murderbot has met and interacted with a bunch of other human groups, and even experienced loss and something like grief, and since Doctor Mensah is its favourite human in the whole world, it can't stand by and see her endangered by GreyCris. It also becomes clear that Murderbot is ready and willing to die in the attempt to get Mensah safe.

I don't think it's a spoiler to anyone that Murderbot, the protagonist of the series, which is currently eight stories and counting (I recently heard that a new Murderbot book, Platform Decay, will be coming out in 2026 - much rejoicing) isn't actually killed here. In case anyone was worried.

Before I finally read Network Effect, this was probably my favourite Murderbot story. 

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory - 3 stars

While most of the stories in The Murderbot Diaries are obviously told from Murderbot/SecUnit's POV, this short story is set after the events of Exit Strategy. It gives us Doctor Mensah's perspective both on the events of that novella and shows us her dealing with the aftermath of what is clearly a very traumatising experience. 

Mensah is clearly a very intelligent and sensitive person, and her insights into Murderbot and the understanding she's clearly gained about it over the course of the novellas (she clearly thought a lot about everyone's favourite SecUnit even when it was away from her and busy finding its own purpose in the world). 

I didn't realise this existed when I first read the series, so I had to go back to it a bit out of continuity, but it's always nice to see the Murderbot world through some of the other characters' eyes, as well. 

Fugitive Telemetry - 4.5 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Technology

While Murderbot isn't anyone's pet at Preservation Station, it's not entirely clear what its duties are supposed to be. Because of the rather harrowing events in Exit Strategy, Murderbot is obviously extremely protective of Doctor Mensah. Protective to the point where it's not surprising when the woman is almost relieved when a dead body shows up, so she can volunteer her SecUnit to assist in the investigation. 

Murderbot is worried that the dead body may have something to do with GreyCris, so it agrees to help determine the identity of the deceased, find out where the body was killed and how, and most importantly, why this happened. Of course, in order to do so, it needs to persuade the rather cautious members of station security to trust it (not everyone knows that Murderbot, while a rogue SecUnit, isn't a BAD SecUnit) and speak to a number of humans and other robots, not exactly something it's super well-equipped to handle. 

To my delight, Murderbot seeks the advice of Ratthi and Gurathin, some of my favourite supporting characters (the show did SO much to expand on the character of Gurathin - I liked him before, now I love him). 

Because this novella was published as the sixth in the series, but chronologically takes place as number five, I skipped it on my first read-through, because I didn't want to read it out of order. So, with the exception of Rapport, which came as a surprise to everyone, this was my last existing Murderbot story to discover. Having now read it, I'm sorry I waited so long. It was great. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR16 Book 61: "System Collapse" by Martha Wells

Page count: 256 pages

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

CBR15 Book 57: "Network Effect" by Martha Wells

Page count: 345 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Take the Skies 

Murderbot is away from Dr. Mensah, the person it likes the most (although it would never admit this to anyone, or itself), in order to guard a research party (which includes Mensah's daughter). The group is attacked and sucked through a wormhole, and Murderbot is really very annoyed about the sudden upheaval. When it turns out that the abduction may in fact have something to do with an old friend of Murderbot (not that it acknowledges friends, as such), things immediately get more complicated. If Murderbot could choose, it would spend all its time watching videos and not involving itself in anything complicated involving feelings, but when its humans, or the entity it cares the most for in the universe, are threatened, Murderbot will act, with immediate and drastic measures. 

It was a long hiatus, but as soon as I picked up this first full-length novel about our favourite misanthropic SecUnit, I wondered why it had taken me so long to return to the world of Murderbot. While this book was a bit slow to start, once the action starts, it pretty much doesn't let up until the end. Murderbot, who is learning to become an individual of its own, has to deal a lot with pesky feelings in this book. While there is a bit of a misunderstanding between Murderbot and Mensah's kid (I could look up the name, but I'm not going to), about how they feel towards one another, Murderbot is clearly very protective, and the teen at one point refers to Murderbot as "Third Mom" - which incidentally totally justifies the feeling I've always had that if Murderbot did have a gender, it would be female. It's in the text, people!

Being abducted by creepy-looking possible aliens and eventually being reunited with ART, and then deciding to assist in recovering ART's missing crew leads to all manner of complications. It feels strange to describe the relationship between a very powerful AI and an android, neither of whom should be able to feel any emotions at all, as romantic, but there were scenes in this that hit me straight in the feels. Murderbot's humans clearly recognise that there is something special between them, and the way both of them are ready to kill the heck out of anyone who threatens the safety of the other is rather swoon-worthy. 

I would not recommend anyone start with this novel without having read at least All Systems Red and Artificial Condition to get the necessary backstory (but the other two novellas are also great, so why would you skip them?). It takes a lot for me to like sci-fi, but I absolutely love these. The only reason I'm not rating this 5 stars is that having just read Lessons in Chemistry and Folk med Ångest, both books which made me feel even more, and this doesn't feel like it really reached the same level (I wanted more schmoopy emotions between Murderbot and ART). Upon a re-read, I will probably change the rating to a full 5. 

The benefit of having waited as long as I have is that there's only about a month to wait for the release of the next novel, and while I wait, I have another novella (sadly set earlier than this, because I REALLY want to see where this goes next) to comfort myself with. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is nicely atmospheric, with Murderbot out on either a space station or a spaceship, with another one hovering above it. All the Murderbot stories have excellent covers, this is no exception. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR12 Books 34-37: "The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells

Total page count: 650 pages
Total rating for the series: 4.5 stars

#CBR12Bingo: Gateway (this would work as an excellent gateway into sci-fi fiction)

All Systems Red - 4.5 stars
I have reviewed this first novella before, back in 2018, and my original post can be found here. I decided to re-read this first Murderbot story and then read the following three novellas in preparation of the full novel about everyone's favourite misanthropic sec unit, being released in May 2020. By now, when I've finally gotten around to writing my review, the book has of course been out for several months, and I have yet to find the time to read it (June REALLY wasn't a particularly good month for me, reading-wise).

Murderbot, of course, wishes that everyone would just leave it alone to enjoy all its downloaded entertainment, but instead, the humans they're supposed to protect keep getting into scrapes and it has to do its job as a Sec Unit. Once we went into lockdown, I would have happily just self-isolated at home and binge-watched Netflix and HBO, but instead I had to take care of and entertain a rapidly developing two-year-old, and remote teach up to ninety teenagers a week (15 of which I also had to call at least once a week to make sure they were doing OK), while my own mental health steadily deteriorated. Honestly, Murderbot is way better at performing its duties in a high-pressure environment than I have been for the last few months.

It was nice to revisit the beginning and get re-familiarised with the crew that got Murderbot to start feeling all those inconvenient feelings and emotions.

Artificial Condition - 4.5 stars
Murderbot doesn't want to become anyone's "pet" Sec Unit, instead, it goes off on its own, trying to figure out what actually happened in the mining disaster where it killed a number of humans and actually became Murderbot. Discovering the truth of the past will also help Dr Mensah, the kind human who technically now owns Murderbot, as further evidence against the big corporation that may or may not have tried to kill Dr Mensah, Murderbot and their entire crew can only come in handy.

Murderbot makes a new friend, who is even smarter than it is, a Research Vessel going by ART. After a slightly tense and antagonistic start to their relationship, Murderbot and ART bond over their love for space soaps.

Along the way on its new mission, Murderbot also encounters some new humans that it starts feeling protective of. It's all very inconvenient.

Of course, Murderbot's further adventures are just as entertaining, if not better, than the first novella. I really liked ART, and the friendship that developed between it and Murderbot. I also really like how Martha Wells manages to include slower, more introspective passages with tense and fast-paced action scenes, as well as more chances for Murderbot to develop and become more of its own individual.

Rogue Protocol - 4.5 stars
Murderbot continues in its quest to gather evidence against the evil GreyCris corporation and ends up on another mission, protecting hapless humans who don't know to take proper care of themselves. Murderbot needs to find an identity of its own because it's certainly no longer a proper SecUnit, but it's also not a human, nor does it want to become one. In this story, Murderbot meets a group of people travelling with a bot, who they treat with kindness and respect, a bit like a pet (the very fate Murderbot wishes to avoid). Yet Miki the bot, who is all that is optimistic and naive, so pretty much the diametrical opposite of Murderbot, comes to teach Murderbot some important lessons.

While Miki was an interesting character to introduce, I missed Murderbot's snarky friendship with ART in this one. It's also clear that the story is moving towards reuniting Murderbot with its first crew, and I kind of just wished the story would get to that place. Of the four novellas, this was my least favourite. By all means, very good, but it felt more of a bridging story than the others.

Exit Strategy - 5 stars
Murderbot still fights the notion that it has emotions or feelings, but it's pretty much the only thing that can explain why Murderbot decides to expose itself to danger when its actions in the previous story now means that GreyCris, the corrupt corporation that previously tried to kill Dr Mensah and her crew (while Murderbot was hired to protect them) in fact means has been able to take Dr Mensah hostage. Murderbot still doesn't want to be anyone's pet android, but Dr Mensah and her crew always treated Murderbot with respect and sometimes even kindness, and it cannot stand by and let GreyCris win.

Murderbot has to reunite with its old crew, convince them that it wants to help, then they have to find Mensah and rescue her, with everyone hopefully making it back to Preservation in one piece. Of course, Murderbot doubts it will be joining the others, it seems like GreyCris are pretty determined to take it down, once and for all.

As a lot of long-time readers of my reviews know, I don't tend to read a lot of sci-fi. I'm reading more of it since I started going to my local nerd bookstore's monthly book club since we alternate a fantasy and a sci-fi book every other month. Yet the Murderbot novellas are sci-fi that I thoroughly enjoy, probably because it's very heavily character-driven (even if our protagonist is not a human) and there is a very good balance of exciting action scenes and quieter introspective scenes where Murderbot has to interact with others and further develop as an individual. I'm very glad that Martha Wells has written a full-length novel about Murderbot now, and that there seems to be another coming out in 2021. I adore Murderbot's snary, misanthropic but secretly emotional self. I will happily keep reading whatever Ms. Wells chooses to publish.

Judging the books by their covers: All the novellas in the Murderbot series have very elegantly designed covers with a thoroughly science fiction feel. I don't think you'd doubt for a second what genre of book this was, with any of them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 51: "All Systems Red" by Martha Wells

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

From Goodreads:
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid - a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot". Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. 

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth. 

Recently, I read Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, which won the 2016 Nebula award for best novella. I was rather underwhelmed by that story. All Systems Red just won the Nebula for best novella for 2018, and I thought that was a much more deserving winner - and a much more engaging and well-written story besides.

I think a lot of introverted and nerdy readers on the internet can identify with Murderbot, who has hacked its own governor module and spends all of its downtime (and any other spare moments it can get away with it) consuming the countless hours of entertainment media it has sneakily downloaded. As it points out in the very first lines of the novella, it could have become a mass murdering killing machine after hacking its governor module, but with all that media to consume, who has the time? Murderbot finds social interaction deeply awkward and absolutely hates small talk and especially talking about feelings of any kind, which makes the fact that several of the scientists keep trying to engage it in conversation and treating it as an important member of the crew, not just a mindless droid (it's not mindless, of course, but it also would rather be left alone). Muderbot loves its armour and hates having to be without it, which becomes a bit of an issue as the story goes on - its duty is to protect the scientists and unexpectedly, what was supposed to be a pretty routine research mission turns out to be really rather dangerous.

The first instalment of The Murderbot Diaries is an excellent example of why I keep trying science fiction, a genre that is more often than not miss than hit for me. It's not that I hate all sci-fi stories, it's just that the ones that I really like and that manage to really engage me emotionally are few and far between. Since Murderbot clearly is some sort of spiritual cousin to Marvin the Paranoid Android (I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my early teens) and also has many of the same anxious reactions to socialising as I frequently do, not to mention wants nothing but to be left alone and consume mindless entertainment, I (like so many other readers) couldn't help but love it.

The second novella in this series is out now, but I'm not allowing myself to read it until I'm fully and completely caught up on my backlog. Happily, while it's taking a while, I am slowly but surely churning out reviews and should be able to read about Murderbot's next adventure soon.

Judging a book by its cover: This cover shows Murderbot, in its armour that it finds so comforting, front and centre. The background is suitably ominous, considering the contents of the story. I like that the art is done in such a way that this almost looks like black and white, except it's not.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.