Network Effect
Ratings666
Average rating4.4
Oh, Murderbot, when you have feelings it makes me have feelings. I hope you and Peri are very happy together. The review of this on Smart Bitches Trashy Books called it “an ace/agender romantic suspense novel,” and while I wouldn't have thought that definition fit any of the novellas in the series, it definitely does apply here. I would read the novellas in order before reading this, because they really give so much depth to the backstory and relationships and characters. I didn't love the beginning section of this because I find written action sequences somewhat hard to follow, especially with newer characters that I'm not as familiar with yet (and also, I just find a lot of action sequences boring in general, written or on-screen). I loved the new human and construct characters and very much enjoyed this, but it's 4 stars for me because the beginning was a bit of a slog.
(2021 Summer Romance Bingo: “bodyguard,” would also work for “friends to lovers,” or loosely for “scientific pursuit.”)
This is the best book in the series so far! Murderbot just keeps having one breakdown after another, emotionally and physically.
Spoilers
Favorite scenes:
- Ameena and SecUnit bickering!
- Hiding in the toilet because you're having an emotional response.
- SecUnit realising ART has been deleted.
- SecUnit and ART bickering over and over till they decide to rescue ART's crew.
- SecUnit intentionally playing Worldhoppers knowing that it's ART's favorite show and that'll lure them both into a conversation.
- Ameena saying that writing a code together is like having a baby
I only discovered the Murderbot diaries a few weeks ago, but since then I've eagerly waited for this full length novel to release because what's better than a longer book with Murderbot. I started listening to the audiobook as soon as it dropped on my tablet and it's been such a wonderful experience.
After having gotten to know this world and characters in four novellas, I didn't think we could get to know them even better but how wrong I was. The author takes the extra number of pages here as an opportunity to give us more knowledge about the working of colonists, corporations and their hostile takeovers, alien remnant contamination, and the various legal and political intrigue across different systems. I also found the author's AMA very revelatory in which she mentioned that through the series, she wanted to talk about the exploitative nature of corporations, and how they get to decide who are treated as humans and given rights, and who are not. I think this theme came across much more clearly in this novel and I loved it.
I absolutely adore the conversational writing style of these books and I think it was more pronounced here, especially in the audiobook. The narrator also does a marvelous job giving unique voices to everyone, and also letting us feel that unique sarcastic tone of Murderbot which is so symbolic to this series. There is also plenty of action, suspense and thrill throughout this story, which kept me engaged and entertained and I never wanted to stop listening.
And now coming to the best part of this series, the eponymous Murderbot. Irrespective of what was happening in the plot, I thought this was a great character study and we got to know so much more about how Murderbot feels about its various humans, it's developing relationship with each individual and how much it wants to deny that ART is its friend. I was absolutely delighted to see how much it worried about Dr. Mensah's mental health, it's overprotective nature towards Amena and how absolutely mad it got when it realized that ART was in trouble. Murderbot has changed so much through the series and sometimes, it's hard to fathom that it's not just a socially anxious human.
ART is snark personified but it brings so much more entertainment and energy to the proceedings. And however much they both try to behave antagonistically towards each other, it's undeniable that they share a special bond and will do anything to save the other from harm. Their conversations and some of their reactions were so endearing and funny, that I couldn't help but laugh and delight at them. I don't think I'm ever going to forget ART's “Operation Rain Destruction” plan and how overwhelmed Murderbot was when it got to know about it. All the other human side characters and a very surprise addition to the crew are absolutely wonderful and I can't even say whom I like more. They are all a symbol of compassion and kindness, and the perfect companions/teammates for Murderbot.
To conclude, this was so charming and fun and brought me so much joy during these bleak times. If you have never read this series, but love sci-fi and want some positive entertainment, and would love to get acquainted with a socially awkward AI construct who enjoys binging very unrealistic tv shows but has to save pesky humans instead - then go ahead and pick this series up immediately because I promise, you are missing out. My only hope is that we get many more books in this series in the future and ART always makes an appearance.
Contains spoilers
As someone who struggles with focusing on audiobooks, I was terrified by the length of this one compared to the other books in the series. But it was great, I was hooked from the beginning, the hours simply flew by and I found myself frustrated when I didn't have time to listen on a given day.
This one made me feel many emotions ("ugh", as Murderbot would say) and it might just be my favorite in the series so far. I loved all the characters, loved ART, Murderbot's development and those closing thoughts about how change is terrifying. Beautiful. I will have to experience it again in book form at some point.
In May 2020, Martha Wells brought us Network Effect, the ultimate Murderbot crossover episode and the first full-length novel in the series. And I...didn't read it because I was playing Animal Crossing at the time. Like, for thousands of hours I was doing that. Which, actually, is very Murderbot-coded of me. Here Murderbot encounters new sorts of imminent danger alongside new social situations: merging friend groups, adolescence, and, oh yeah, a whole lot of trauma. Murderbot is really good at helping itself and others survive terrible things. But sometimes surviving after the acute event, in your day-to-day life, in relationships with others, is the harder part.Murderbot in babysitter mode is compelling, as the stress adult humans cause it is compounded by the simultaneous imperviousness and naïveté of teenagers. Amena and Murderbot are similar in many ways. They love and are loved by Dr. Mensah, they are petty and stubborn, and they both fling themselves at immense threats the second someone they care about is crossed. I like how Wells balances not undercutting who Murderbot is with its introspection and slowly thawing ability to concede it is deeply sensitive and caring. I like when weirdos get to stay weirdos. Last, I want to mention [a:Kevin R. Free 2119344 Kevin R. Free https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1370714677p2/2119344.jpg]'s audiobook narration. It is so good. I recently found a full cast version of Network Effect on hoopla, and I was like “I could have had different people and sound effects this whole time?!” but I immediately rejected it in favor of Kevin. The number of voices he can do distinctly is so impressive.
“Ugh, emotions.”
Murderbot's internal struggle in a nutshell, and honestly, mine too while reading Network Effect. I wasn't convinced this series needed a full-length novel, but I take it all back—this was everything I wanted and more.
First of all, ART is back! And I don't care how much Murderbot pretends otherwise, their bromance is the best thing that ever happened, period. The way they push each other's buttons (figuratively and literally) is pure gold. Add in a situation that forces Murderbot to actually confront its feelings—about humans, about itself, and about its weird, dysfunctional found-family dynamic—and you've got a book that's as hilarious as it is unexpectedly heartfelt.
Of course, there's plenty of action too. Murderbot gets thrown into chaos (again), has to save a bunch of humans (again), and complains the whole way through (again). But in between the sarcasm and gunfire, there's a real evolution happening. Murderbot doesn't want to be human, but it's figuring out what kind of person it actually is.
More of this, please. Everyone needs a MurderBot in their lives.
I’m not sure if I’m as much of a fan of the longer form Murderbot but I still enjoy reading about it and Art and their adventures, and this book is no different.
I found the plot to be a bit overly complex, but with a series like Murderbot the fun is with it as a character and less about plot details so it’s easy to forgive the extra fluff. Will continue to read the series and excited for the upcoming TV show!
I love this series so much. I adore Muderbot and ART and as much as I loved their interactions in Rogue Protocol, it's so much more fun and also strangely adorable in this one.
Finally a whole Muderbot novel... it's really what we deserve.
I think this is my favorite one so far. Development into a “person“ is just SO well done. Adventure part of the story was also amazing.
TL;DR
Finally we get a chunky story, with more depth, more action and more characters than in previous entries. Really liked this one, mainly because of one returning character. My favorite is still Rogue Protocol but that's because that one has a bit of horror in it. This one is more action oriented. Still a very enjoyable read.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
✓ - Main Story: Biggest story so far in the series, I liked it, both the original characters, my favorite one and some cool new ones are present this time. Also lots of action in this one.
X - Side Stories (if it applies):
✓ - Characters: Great to see the original characters back into play, my favorite one back in the picture was a big bonus as well. The new characters are also nice and likeable.
✓ - Setting/Ambiance: A familiar ship and a new planet. This time the planet is a lot more interesting than the in the first book.
X - Ending: Good ending, not as good and the previous books but was nice.
Extensive Review
At this point you know if you want to keep reading more of Murderbot or not. This time we get a bigger story with a lot of returning characters as well as new ones and all of them are likeable so that's good. There are three things I'm kinda getting annoyed at:
- Murderbot's feelings: Every time someone is nice to him or gives him a compliment or just wants to touch him he just shuts off and dismisses it, letting us know how much he hates feelings and tries to immediately run away from the interaction, being incredibly awkward. I know that's his thing but I would have hoped that by this point having interacted so much with humans and people not treating him as a machine would make him think "huh, I guess it's not so bad to be around some people" but no. He constantly let us know how better he got at hacking and writting code from his previous experiences yet probably the most important thing which is how he perceives humans and interacts with them is still exactly like the first interaction in the first book we read. Very minor spoiler <spoiler>(We encounter another SecUnit that is free and we get to see his POV for a few chapters, well...seeing how he interacts with everyone and what is he thinking made me wish he was the protagonist).</spoiler> It's getting annoying every time time a trusted person says "Are you ok?" him thinking "fuck off, I hate feelings, I just want to watch my dumbass series and not bother with anything". And then saying "Yes, I'm fine." then he does everything in his power to exit the conversation.
- Action Scenes: Whenever an action happens it's quite hard to follow, because there are CentralSystem, SecSystem, CombatSystem, Target1, Target2, Drone1, Drone2 all of them doing something while Murderbot tries to attack and plan and it just gets so messy. Every action scene is quite hard to keep track of and in my opinion it didn't flow at all. I didn't mention it in previous books because it was mainly Murderbot with his drones and a target or two so it was managable but here it's starting to be a problem.
- Summary: Multiple times in this book and in the previous ones goes like this. Something happens and there is a meeting to talk about a plan to action, everyone gives their input and we hear it all, we also hear Murderbot's thinking so we know everything. Then Murderbot says:
So what happened was:
1) We were surverying the planet when something attacked us.
2) We manged to survive and escape.
3) We figured out a plan and everyone has their part to do.
4) Did I mention this plan was terrible?, if not then yea it's terrible. (Alywas has to have that dumbass quirky remark that's also stating to get quite annoying. Don't understand how people think this is endearing but sadly this is 90% of Murderbot's "personality")
I don't undertand this, most of the time the summary is literally what happened in this chapter. I guess it's so explain how AI likes to organize things and stuff?, well it's stupid and annoying to have to read something worded a bit differently of what you just read four pages ago.
Aside from those three problems this is another great entry in the series, again, mainly because of a returning character that I really like plus a few other ones (definitely not because of Murderbot, starting to get annoying with him as I said in my previous point). I want to see what happens next and hopefully see some changes in Murderbot's personality, though if it didn't happen by book #5, I don't have high hopes so I'll just deal with Murderbot and his annoying awkwardness of it's feelings and rolling my eyes every time a character I like tries to connect with him only for it to dissmiss them immediately.
This novel-length entry in the series is very successful at what made the others great. Good mix of old favorites and new characters as the story continues from the previous works but expands even further. Ultimately I prefer the shorter lengths, but I'm sure once the series is done I will cherish the extra time with murderbot this one affords.
3.5 It was pretty good, but it also felt somehow repetitive at moments. These stories were much better for me in the shorter form, as more snackable pieces. This dragged and I didn't feel like all was justified.
This took me a little while to get into–maybe because I'd gotten used to the all killer-no filler novellas and when I was faced with a full-length book I was like, oh I'm full? I think it had a bit more of the military/action stuff that I don't love (like Murderbot I find it boring) BUT I loved having more space (ha) to see Murderbot's relationships (sorry Murderbot) in action especially with ART!!! Fuck yeah
Murderbot continues to explore what it means to care about others and what it means to have others care for it.
i'm so conflicted right now. i absolutely adore Murderbot and its adventures, so of course, i was looking forward to this first full-length novel. but after a series of novellas, my attention stubbornly refused to stop floating adrift. i shifted to reverse countless times just to catch up with the plot, but doubling back every so often made for a tiring experience. i'll consider giving it another go in the future, but onto the next in the meantime
Again, Murderbot books feel quite formulaic. This book took forever to read despite its 350 page length, mostly because it was just not drawing me through it. I think I might pause the Murderbot Diaries here and wait to pick up the third one for a while. I enjoy aspects of these books a lot, but overall they're quite formulaic and unfortunately that formula is just not working for me.
Network Effect by Martha Wells is another excellent installment in the Murderbot Diaries. This novel is the longest volume in the series and may also have some of the highest stakes so far. I loved seeing Murderbot team up with old and new characters and throughly enjoyed this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5/12/23
Still love this book! I will say that there was a definite place in the story where I thought “oh, this would be the end of this were a novella,” but I'm glad there was more!
A full length novel for Murderbot! My main complaint through the novellas was that each story was just too short and finally I got an uninterrupted full length story to sit in MB's passenger seat. I love reading from MB's perspective, I love how we never leave its side and all the information we receive is coloured by its particular brand of paranoia. Of course it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.
It's fun to see Murderbot grow as its own conscious entity and giving it a full novel to interact with some of its favorite humans (and its favorite ship) has done a lot to enhance the human element of their character. This is not the same Murderbot from All Systems Red, its growth has been subtle so far and in this novel we see how these new relationships have made their impact. But make no mistake, this story at its core is basically the Brave Little Toaster gets downright murderous. I eagerly await the next full length novel in this series, I am curious to see Murderbot evolve even further.