It feels downright indulgent to read a 350-page Murderbot book.

There was a lot about this book I liked. Because it was longer, we get to see more of Murderbot's interactions with various humans and bots / constructs as well as its overall character development. I liked the creepy atmosphere toward the end, and seeing Murderbot get upset thinking

ART was dead

. I liked the serious tone; the book really reframes a lot of the previous material.

For example, that Murderbot's relationship with the company, which it often jokes about, is based deeply in trauma. And when Murderbot sees another SecUnit that was ordered to stand down and then killed by its governor module. It's like a joke or an annoyance at first, and this book really shows the reader that this isn't to be taken lightly.

 

That said, the plot felt like it moved really, really slowly, and then went way too quickly at the climax. In the other Murderbot books, because they're novellas, that doesn't seem so weird, as the overall effect is that the entire plot moves quickly. But it doesn't work in the full-length novel. Additionally, it seemed like Wells wanted to expand on a bunch of themes - the self-awareness of other SecUnits, Murderbot's ability to have meaningful relationships, corporate greed - but wasn't able to fully explore all of them. There were so many different pieces, many of which worked well together, but some of which didn't.

Also, and this is a problem with all the Murderbot books, there are just so many damn characters.

I did really love this book, though. As a novella with much the same content, I probably would have given it 5 stars.

I've loved the way each of the books in this series has been building off each other, from offhand comments about the governor module to full-blown detail here. The alien remnants coming back at long last was a great premise for the first full-length book! And loved that we got to revisit so many of the original crew.

Of course, the heart of this one is friendship and we are reunited with ART! I love the relationships in these books and we get to spend so much more time on them here. This one also felt more intense than most of the others so far, it starts hot and it feels like there's no time to rest. I wasn't sure how the new length would work when the other books so far felt the perfect length but this was an action-packed ride that never felt overly drawn out. 

There's room for a lot more detail of course, and I am finding it harder to keep track of the many names and locations and events that have been part of this series now but that's mostly a me problem. I think with the length of this one it would definitely help to reread the others as a refresher. I chose to read the 6th book (written after the 5th but occurring before it) before this one and it's very interesting in retrospect as there was no hint at the chaos that would come very soon after.

Overall, very good and I'm very expecting about the new characters we're introduced to in this book.

Fave quote from the book: "Angry, then afraid, then dead. Is that the right order?"