Network Effect(Murderbot Diaries)
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4.4 • 75 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Martha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling Murderbot series exploded onto the scene in 2017, and the world has not been the same, since.
Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel, Network Effect.
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.
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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.
Customer Reviews
Fun- if shallow- series
If you want a fun read with snappy, sarcastic and enjoyable prose that pays off as long as you don’t think too hard, you should enjoy the Murderbot Diaries. I sure did. The author’s key strength is her writing. The sarcasm and internal monologue of the protagonist is easy and enjoyable, and the plots are engaging and scratch all the itches of mystery, tension and excitement.
Where Wells falls down is in the shallowness of her worlds and supporting characters. While this is ostensibly Sci-Fi, there is really very little science. Tropes like artificial gravity, ray guns, hacking, and wormholes are included as needed to make her plots go, with little regard to how they might impact her universe. Robot needs to get through this security checkpoint, so he hacks a system. The plot needs him to be discovered, so hacking doesn’t work.
The political world-building is equally unsatisfying. The author needed a “good” polity and a “bad” polity, and so we have benign “university” and “socialist” governments where people’s needs are all taken care of, and they just barter between each other. And the bad guys, well obviously they would be the evil corporations. None of how this works in practice is actually explained or explored- the bad corporations trick people into perpetual indentured servitude because they need to be evil, and somehow an entire planet where the populace is dependent on its government for shelter, food, and other staples is purely benevolent. It all just works the way it needs to because the Author needs good guys and bad guys. The hidden costs of these worlds (the costs of corporations treating its employees the same as 20th century failures like the Soviet Union or managing scarce resources like shelter on a socialized space station) are all ignored, because that would distract from the necessity of the plot.
This “world building through wishful thinking” is fine for what it is. It helps us breeze through problems with convenient solutions, so that we can focus on what brings Murderbot to the next tense standoff or sarcastic quip. But it can be distracting at times when it is clear that the author has not thought at all about the ramifications of these decisions.
Overall, I think this is a fun audiobook for driving, when you are partially distracted and not thinking too deeply. When you put your whole mind to it, the shallowness tends to lessen the experience. But a fun romp, nonetheless.