Hardcover, 256 pages
English language
Published May 5, 2026 by Tor Books.
Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells' bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series.
Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.
Having volunteered to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realises that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know.
Including human children. Ugh.
This may well call for... eye contact!
(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)
Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells' bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series.
Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.
Having volunteered to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realises that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know.
Including human children. Ugh.
This may well call for... eye contact!
(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)
Not sure why but this story was dragging along. Might be that I had a lot to take care of IRL. The story didn't catch me as much as the others did.
Not sure why but this story was dragging along. Might be that I had a lot to take care of IRL. The story didn't catch me as much as the others did.
As per usual. Kevin R. Free kills it in the audiobook narration
Murderbot visits Space Disneyland
Platform Decay feels like a bit of a "side story" imo, similar to Fugitive Telemetry. I kind of like that there are some stories where Murderbot just helps some people though, without necessarily saving a planet or taking down a corporation or making Big Discoveries about its past. It also helps with the pacing of the series as a whole when every book doesn't need to be even more epic than the previous one. Also Murderbot needs time to process its trauma after a Big One.
It's interesting to get a glimpse into more of "normal" corporation space (i.e. not labor camps or transit rings).
I like that Three had a very slightly bigger role, and I'm hoping we get even more of that in the future - I'd even enjoy some Three-centric stories, similar to how Rapport was about Perihelion and its …
Murderbot visits Space Disneyland
Platform Decay feels like a bit of a "side story" imo, similar to Fugitive Telemetry. I kind of like that there are some stories where Murderbot just helps some people though, without necessarily saving a planet or taking down a corporation or making Big Discoveries about its past. It also helps with the pacing of the series as a whole when every book doesn't need to be even more epic than the previous one. Also Murderbot needs time to process its trauma after a Big One.
It's interesting to get a glimpse into more of "normal" corporation space (i.e. not labor camps or transit rings).
I like that Three had a very slightly bigger role, and I'm hoping we get even more of that in the future - I'd even enjoy some Three-centric stories, similar to how Rapport was about Perihelion and its team.
Overall, I loved it, and I'm ready for more!
Another short, intense story. I still can't figure out how she gets so much emotion out of an 'emotionless' bot. But she does, and I love it.
Another short, intense story. I still can't figure out how she gets so much emotion out of an 'emotionless' bot. But she does, and I love it.
New Murderbot! An action snack, but a bit shallow. It was fine—I will read every Murderbot until the end of time—but also, there just isn't enough here for me.
I said, “We’re not sacrificing anybody.” It just came out, I couldn’t help it.
(Emotion check: Apparently there is an easier way to do things, but I wouldn’t know. I like to do it the hard way, and take as much physical and emotional damage as possible.)
The new shtick this book is that Murderbot has installed a mental health module that checks in with it when its neural tissue generates "weird chemicals or whatever". Murderbot has to explicitly deal more with its feelings that normally it would ignore. Unfortunately, this narrative device doesn't feel like it has the same level of impact on the story as something like the trauma response in System Collapse.
…
New Murderbot! An action snack, but a bit shallow. It was fine—I will read every Murderbot until the end of time—but also, there just isn't enough here for me.
I said, “We’re not sacrificing anybody.” It just came out, I couldn’t help it.
(Emotion check: Apparently there is an easier way to do things, but I wouldn’t know. I like to do it the hard way, and take as much physical and emotional damage as possible.)
The new shtick this book is that Murderbot has installed a mental health module that checks in with it when its neural tissue generates "weird chemicals or whatever". Murderbot has to explicitly deal more with its feelings that normally it would ignore. Unfortunately, this narrative device doesn't feel like it has the same level of impact on the story as something like the trauma response in System Collapse.
I wish we had gotten more character development or even just character reveals. We get more Farai, but there's not enough ART or Three for my tastes.
