Platform Decay

Book 8 in the Murderbot Diaries series

‍

Much less action-packed than other books in this series, this one focuses on getting the job done with as few casualties and deaths as possible.

‍

In this one, Murderbot has been tasked with going onto a gigantic, torus-shaped space station that is wrapped in and around a planet and extracting members of its human ‘family’. In the midst of that, the number of people Murderbot must extract doubles. The task seems insurmountable because the hostiles know someone is coming. But because of Murderbot's ability to get inside digital networks and the walk-like-a-human program it wrote for itself, the job gets done.

‍

(This is why humans shouldn’t do their own security, or farm it out to automated sensor sweeps. Sensors can’t see what they can’t see, right? And while humans are shit at security, mostly because of the overreacting and some being assholes who just like using weapons to hurt each other, they are fantastic at getting into places where they aren’t supposed to be.)

‍

Most books have a plotline in which the problem is set up near the beginning of the story and builds to the climax about 80% of the way in. The Murderbot books don’t follow that pattern.

‍

This one starts with action and is tense and mildly-action-filled all the way through but doesn't have an obvious climactic scene. In fact, when it was nearing the end, I realized the climax had already happened (one or two incidents before). Because of that - and because the action was sacrificed for scenes where Murderbot is taking care of the needs of kids and an elderly person - I liked this one less than the other books.

‍

I had a map but I could have followed the smell of human sweat and old socks to the nearest locker room. There were no cubbies or partitions or anything, which was normal. Usual, anyway. I had heard a lot of humans comment adversely on it over the years. The word “perverted” often came up. Which, I totally understood. Bare human parts are disgusting, no one should have to look at them.

‍

I wanted for there to be shoot-outs with massive, scary robots, and for the bad guys to die (or at least get maimed), but this story was more about relationships than shoot-outs.

‍