When I read this book in January of 2019 it was my least favorite of the original four (spoiler, it still is), mostly because I didn’t connect with the non-Murderbot characters. To a degree that is still true, I feel less connected to them than I did to Mensah’s team in the first or the programmers in the second. But, on a second visit I think that’s probably by design, as Wells is clearly juxtaposing Don Amene and Miki against those other relationships. There is also the fact that to a certain extent the plot structure here is both repetitive and thinner than Artificial Condition since we don’t get the separate layer of the relationship with ART or an ART stand-in (perish the thought, there can be only one ART).
Murderbot has information it needs to sort out its own past, but it also feels compelled to get information that Dr. Mensah needs for the case against GrayCris for the events of All Systems Red. That feeling (and Murderbot hates having feelings) is what pushes it to a former terraforming site, and a group that is investigating it for possible takeover – and who has landed themselves right in the crosshairs they didn’t know were there, cue Murderbot. Murderbot is growing and changing as its various self-assigned missions progress and its nowhere clearer than in its uncomfortableness in trying to behave like a regular SecUnit after all this time not having to, and also without the literal protective armor that allowed it to hide after it disabled its governor module but before it met Mensah. This outing is a bridge, for Murderbot to have another view on what it does and doesn’t want in its freedom, and for it to finally fully decide that it needs to get back to its Preservation crew.
Bingo Square: Dreams. Murderbot is both dreaming of a new life and dreaming of revenge.
Bingo #1: Part 1, Part 2, Dreams, Golden, Scandal
Bingo #2: Liberate, Horses, Dreams, Fiasco, Détente
Sweet 16: Binge
It took me so long to get my first bingo, that I managed to get two at once!