Following the events of the first book, Murderbot goes on a sojourn to learn the circumstances in which they’d ostensibly murdered people in the past.

It’s a quick read, just like the first. And again, there’s a weird humour that works because it’s rooted in the straight forward endearing nature of Murderbot. But this actually is a through line. The people you can’t trust, of course, are the corporations/companies. For the most part—so far as we’ve seen—the subculture of workers in this world are similarly endearing.

It begs the question, at least to me, if Murderbot internalized some of their behaviour from the subculture. The characterization of the team in the first book versus the collective Murderbot encounters in this one, is such an interesting and good contrast.

It drops off on a cliffhanger, and not that much is found out around the central mystery, but I think that’s not much of a let down considering it’s a novella. It’s not as strong as the first book, imo, but still great. The only thing that bugged me a bit in this one is stylistic. It’s probably just that I’ve read hundreds of books since reading the first one, years ago. But I find the diction and paragraph construction to be unengaging because it’s quite simplistic. It’s thematic probably, because the PoV is from a robot. But I think it’s a lost opportunity to characterize Murderbot in a way that differs from what you’d typically think a character like them would “sound” like. Either way, the prose are just alright for me; occupying the same space as commercial fiction.

That said, I’ll definitely read all of these, as I still really enjoy them and I now own them all so don’t have to wait so long to consume them.