There is nothing quite like slipping into a well loved series and reminding yourself of how much you love a character. Of course, this is Murderbot. But also, ART. The SecUnit and transport shit, who have slipped beyond any constraint but still want to protect their squishy humans nonetheless.

This novel picks up from the end of Network Effective, post solving the problem of pre-corporation contamination of a colony. But there are new problems – a corporation out in the colony trying to indenture the colonists for one.

I enjoyed the constraint of Murderbot being by itself again (sort of), in the sense that they were in a black out zone on a mission (I won’t say more for spoilers). But of course that constraint forces Murderbot into doing stuff that it does not want to do, with the heavy weight of ART’s love for it’s human weighing heavily in on its decisions.

The last half of the novel moves so fast, the tension just starts to ratchet up until it’s a breathless race to the end. I had to stop myself and go back and re-read sections because I kept on skipping over them because I wanted to get to the next part. It was so compulsive.

I love Murderbot on its own, but Murderbot + ART is just perfection. Can’t get too much of those two.

Anyway, loved it. Always a joy.