Book Review: Network Effect by Martha Wells

Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel by Martha Wells

Muderbot, a rogue cyborg who used to be more robot than human, goes on another adventure. This time, he's bot-napped by aliens and taken through a wormhole to an abandoned colony far beyond any other humans (or bots). The colony is the home of the aliens, or at least the location of alien artifacts that have infected some humans and turned them into parasitic monsters. Other familiar beings are involved in the story, like ART the university survey ship that helped Murderbot to look and act more human in a past story. It may have worked too well. Muderbot is a lot more emotional and humane in its attitude toward others. 

The story is exciting and humorous, giving a lot of joy to the reader. Some new characters are introduced toward the end of the book that bring out just how far along Murderbot has developed as a character. Lots of other serialized science fiction (and serialized fiction in general (I'm looking at you, Jack Reacher)) tends to play it safe by having their heroes stay basically the same story after story. Murderbot is not like that--it grows as a person which makes for exciting further developments. A lot of the action is more of the same (i.e. well-written action) from earlier stories but the hero grows as a person and becomes more interesting. I can't wait for the next story.

Highly recommended.