It’s official, I LOVE Murderbot.

Story

This is quickly becoming the series with my favorite protagonist, Murderbot, or Security Consultant Rin, as it wants to be called this time around. We follow Murderbot around as it tries to get back at GrayCris for trying to fuck him over way back when, by collecting evidence from another of their cover-ups. Of course nothing goes as planned and everything ends up tits up faster than you can say “Security Consultant Rin”.

Characters

I finally figured out what has been bothering me about the previous 2 books and that is that there’s too much emphasis on the humans surrounding Murderbot and not enough on my favorite SecUnit, despite seeing everything from its eyes. This time is different though, as there is relatively little conversation going on and most of the time we’re just experiencing the action and getting snarky commentary on said action. So apart from Murderbot, the cast is rounded out by Miki, a (pet) humanoid bot, 2 augmented humans who serve as security contractors and a few scientists. Apart from Miki, they’re all quite forgettable and disposable (which I think is a good thing). Miki, and his relationship to his human ‘friends’ is a very interesting character and one that I’ll dearly miss going forward, but I loved that Murderbot grows as a “person” because of him.

Writing

I’m really enjoying Martha Wells’ writing style here. Not too many frills, but always with a witty edge to it.

Conclusion

In my opinion, this is the best one yet, focusing almost exclusively on Murderbot and the action.