eBook, 352 pages
English language
Published May 4, 2020 by Tor.com.
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.
Such a fun read! Action-packed, almost breathlessly so, with much less of the exposition that I think slowed down the later novellas, still plenty of humour, but also deeper relationship-building. Murderbot (aka 'SecUnit', when it wants to be less, I don't know, murderey) remains easily the most relatable character in today's fiction.
Hugo Best Novel 2021, and I can kind of see why. The Murderbot stories do not normally speak to me, but this one was actually gripping and had a bunch of interesting turns. The people still feel somehow wrong, but the scifi story here works.
Enjoyable, but I got bogged down in the middle for a good while: I suspect I prefer this kind of story at novella length.
