Network Effect

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.