“Network Effect” follows Murderbot who goes along for a survey with Dr. Mensah’s oldest child Amena and several people from the Preservation Station. This includes Dr. Mensah’s brother-in-law Thiago, Ratthi and two others, Arada and Overse. When something attacks their ship, it ends up leaving Amena and Murderbot separated from everyone else. And Murderbot does what it does best. It identifies targets and kills them.
Look I love this series and that’s all I can say. I was kicking up my feet with glee while reading this. It was full of heart and humor. And honestly the line “okay third mom” needs to go down in history of reads by a teen because it was great.
Watching Murderbot develop a friendship with Amena and make sure no matter what that she was going to live was wonderful. We also get some interactions with Thiago who I was actually okay with dying, who ended up showing me they weren’t all bad and actually started to care about Murderbot too.
And Murderbot’s interactions with ART were hilarious. The private feed fights and the fights in front of the humans and later on when ART was just flat out telling on Murderbot and got all murdery were my favorite.
Honestly though, Murderbot’s love for Dr. Mensah comes shining through in this. There’s a scene where Murderbot is contemplating killing a human and lying about it, but they are worried what Dr. Mensah would think of it and it just spoke volumes for how its grown.
I will admit though at times the book was hard to follow. And that was usually when Murderbot was trying to explain to us (or themselves) what they thought was really going on. There were also some cut scenes that I realized were memories Murderbot was having, but it took awhile for me to catch on.
I have to say though, I wonder at the ending. I don’t know if I want Murderbot off and away from their friends they made. I know that all good things come to an end, but I definitely don’t want this one to end yet.
I read this for CBR17bingo, “Work: A book with a workplace setting or about someone doing their job.”