Network Effect by Martha Wells

 

I’m so glad Liberty Hardy talk about the Murderbot Diaries on one of the Book Riot’s podcasts or else I might have missed this series that has become one of my very favorite things to read.

My favorite rogue SecUnit is back, the sentient AI with organic parts and its dry, sardonic humor. Murderbot is living and working with his chosen human family when another ship attacks and kidnaps him and Amena, one of the humans he is protecting. Once aboard Murderbot realizes he knows the ship. It’s ART’s ship and ART need’s Murderbot’s help.

The plot is great but what I love about this series are the characters. For a non-human, Murderbot has a lot of human feelings, mostly annoyance and anger with humans and their stupid decisions and messy feelings. Despite its best efforts Murderbot seems to be forming relationships attachments with humans and other AI. (Murderbot would of course have a sarcastic thought at the idea that it was in a relationship.)

I love this series so much an when I truly love something it is that much harder to explain why. So instead, here are some of favorite passages from Network Effect.

Quotes

Humans have a bad tendency to use weapons unnecessarily and indiscriminately. Of the many times I had been shot, a depressingly large percentage of hits had come from clients who were trying to “help” me. [page 20-21]

Since the festival had started, I had been taking note of a potential hostile that Amena had been associating with. Evidence was mounting up and my threat assessment was nearing critical like. Things like: (1) he had informed her that his age was comparable to hers, which was just below the local standard for legal adult, but my physical scan and public record search indicated that he was approximately twelve Preservation standard client years older, (2) he never approached her when any family members or verified friends were with her, (3) he stared at her secondary sexual characteristics when her attention was elsewhere, (4) he encouraged her to take intoxicants that he wasn’t ingesting himself, (5) her parental and other related humans all assumed she was with her friends when she was seeing him and her friends all assumed she was with family and she hadn’t told either group about him, (6) I just had a bad feeling about the little shit. [page 29]

If a bunch of desperate colonists came up in the drop box, the ship could just do a quick detach from the dock’s airlock and it would be unreachable. It wasn’t a foolproof method but it was 90 percent effective. (Foolproof is another weird word. Shouldn’t it be smartproof? It’s not like you’re going to breach and seize control of a ship attached to a space dock by tripping or forgetting to bring your weapon or something.) [page 228]

Overse added, “Just remember you’re not alone here. I never know what to say to that. I am actually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are. [page 242]