Murderbot has PTSD.

That's the main thing in this novel, and it is looked at through the eyes of Murderbot, and through some notes from Bharadwaj. It's struggling at not feeling 100%, not feeling itself, in a way that it hasn't done before.

It's afraid

and struggling with internal self-doubt, and a jaded feeling. 

More time is dedicated to MB and ARTs relationship, and how they interact with new systems they find. 

The time spent here with ARTs humans, MB's team, and all their relationships is really touching. For the conclusion, how they

tackle the Barish-Estranza issue by making a short documentary with emotional undertones - MB's idea!

is genius, and pulls on some new characters and coincides with MB's

growing acceptance of what they are, what they can/can't do, and that it's truly okay to not be yourself when you have others who care for you

. 

Interested where the series will go from here.

I enjoyed this as a palate cleanser after the carnage that occurred in Network Effect. I like that we get to see Murderbot as they developed between Exit Strategy and Network Effect, and how it forms relationships and deals with its known status as SecUnit. 

I enjoyed the murder-mystery, and the killer was a twist right until the end for me. I thought the new humans were very good too, and watching Detective Murderbot was a pleasure.

Possibly my favourite in the Murderbot Diaries, this novel absolutely rules. 

For the personal,

ART and Murderbots developing relationship

, as well as MB's relationship with Mensah, her family, and how it perceives itself and its role on Preservation. 

From a plot point, we have

weird maybe-aliens, the return of ART, and ARTs humans. The kidnapping by ART was genius, and really well explained. The weird alien infection keeps you interested and wanting to know what these weird Grey-looking humans are.

Oh, and how could I forget

the creation of ART and MB's baby, meeting Three, and the backdrop of an abandoned pre-CR planet is incredibly inticing.

The relationship between Murderbot, ART and

Murderbot 2.0

is really well done, with MB obviously caring for it, and yet it still making the decision(s) it made. Especially seeing how

MB 2.0 uses MB's 'notes' as a way to tell Three how to get free.

Wonderful!

Murderbot is awkward, difficult, pissed off, and all sorts of emotions it would rather not be having throughout the book. We have great banter between characters alongside emotional moments. Brilliant stuff.

A very enjoyable entry in the exforce series, if you're for some reason 17 books in and deciding if you should read this one, do! The gang do a lot of hijinx, there's not too much faffing, and some real interesting developments happen with the outsider.

I found this book to be a little frustrating initially. A little slow, too many flashbacks and too little "weird stuff" actually happening in Area X. However, I think that is down to my knowledge of the story from various YouTube videos which discussed the film adaptation.

By the time I was at the latter half of the book, I was starting to see the point; how VanderMeer was tying in the biologists past experiences and outlooks to her current predicament inside Area X. The biologist as the protagonist is an interesting, generally unlikable character. She shows little interest in other people, including her husband, and seems to be experiencing her relationships at a distance, with an uncommon level of analysis. Like a biologist observing animals in the wild. 

Her innate inquisitiveness, or obsession, with ecosystems is what makes her an exceptional POV character for the book. Because of her weird quirks and obsessiveness, you believe every choice she makes in the book. This is compelling because we don't know how much of the choices she made were really due to her, or

due to her exposure to to the phosphorus plant writing.

This juxtaposition of whether choices are made by people or, in effect, Area X, is a running theme throughout the novel, which causes conflict between characters, and adds to a nagging sense of unreliable narrator that the reader will feel.

I believe the biologist to be reliable. Or at least, honest about what she experienced and how everything went down. I have no reason to believe Area X to not be a weird place full of bizarre things, and as such her account rings true for me. Another reader might say that she was clearly

infected

by something at the beginning and, while we see things from her POV which may be mostly "truthful", she is entirely willed by Area X to do the things she does, and perhaps causes harm to others without even knowing it.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I don't think it's particularly scary - creepy, sure - but not scary. It's a little lovecraftian or alien, potentially. Again, this is down to interpretation and is perhaps clarified in the rest of the series, though I suspect the truth of the nature of Area X will remain hidden.

I think I will continue the series and would recommend it to anyone who wants to read something that is both odd, reflective of interpersonal relationships, and has some weird shit in it. 

Another fun entry in the Murderbot Diaries. This one features the sickeningly adorable pet-robot Miki, who forms a sort-of friendship with our depressed Murderbot. This book was full of humour and more emotional development from our lovable cyborg.

We see Murderbot's jealousy when it comes to Miki and how it is treated.

We glimpse it's longing for a more simple life, one where it wasn't burdened by the things it has known or experienced. "...Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that's how they treated it.
I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private."

That quote sums up the humour dashed with emotional undertones which makes me love this series. Miki is adorable, and set up wonderfully throughout the entire book to be an adorable but annoying foil for our protagonist. 

The combat bots were a fun new wrinkle, getting to see Murderbot work out how to attack and take down things much scarier than it. Also, the human characters in this were pretty good at serving their purpose, despite still being cardboard cutouts. 

This review contains small spoilers unrelated to the plot.

I FUCKING loved this book. This book is a cake with far too many layers our leading lady to ever take a bit of it. A mix of British working class reality, womanhood and psychopathic behaviours, where each layer lets you sample a different, unsanitary layer of modern society. 

Your first bite might taste of too many fags, cheap beer and hard liquor, which leads to piggy-backing onto your weird mates who would wander off with strangers towards the end of a night out, with the promise of some sort of after party or drugs, ending with everything becoming increasingly less fun, a little dangerous, and just pretty fucking desperate all around. 

Nibble downward to be assaulted by classism, and the struggles faced by the working class while trying to develop and integrate with new communities, and how everything comes easier to those with inherited wealth and connections, the safety net of Mummy and Daddy’s money, and the ability to bounce back from setbacks that would knock a regular Joe on their arse. 

Lick the cream and you’ll taste the hypocrisy of those trying to climb the social ladder. How our leading lady, Irina, looks down on those around her with the same snobbishness and ‘patient othering’ she is used to being treated with. But among Irina’s flaws, a lack of class consciousness isn’t her main one. 

Take a heafty bite of the icing on this stretched metaphor, and you’ll find an absolute treat. Irina, a late 20-something who is a hot, talented, intelligent woman. She’s also a vile bitch, master manipulator, and rotten narcissist. She’s one of my favourite characters I’ve read in years, and a big part of the reason why I devoured this book in two sittings. This bitch made me ravenous. 

What vile thing would she say to her best friend next, what fucked up abuse would she put some stranger through, what fuck-up would happen next, and why the fuck was she like this?! These are the questions which made me devour this book like Irina devours her meal with Eddie from Tesco. 

Irina is a talented photographer, taking pictures which other tend to class as fetishistic. To her, it’s just her art. Except, that’s not really the truth. First and foremost, Irina is a liar, closely joined by being an incredible narcissist. She wants what she wants and will do whatever she deems necessary to take it. She lies to us, her friends, and to herself. So much so, it’s hard at times to tell what events are real, made up, or conveniently altered to provide Irina with an edgy story, or point of potential manipulative power in the future. 

Irina is tall and strong, physically dominating over many of the men in the novel. She is a well-maintained piece of topiary, and Clark takes great care to let us know that Irina isn’t ‘magically hot’. She might strike you initially as a ‘big-titty goth girlfriend’ stereotype; alternative, edgy and intellectual, but this bitch works hard to look good and she will tell you that herself. She’s clearly shown to have an eating disorder, wears a waist trainer, exercises regularly, and essentially survives off salad and tuna. Not to mention her self-harm, clear depression and PTSD, which all cause Irina and her friends a great deal of pain. 

It’s this juxtaposition which makes this book, and Irina, quite special. Despite being a literal murderer (probably) and an angry, spiteful, vindictive person, Irina feels so incredibly real and relatable. There are good chunks of this book where you feel sympathy for this person-come-monster that it makes you start to question what you really know, what you truly feel, about people like her. 

Irina is a victim. We believe victims. But what if the victim is also a known liar – one known to lie about bad things happening to them to feed their own mythology, their own convenient sob story. Do we believe victims then? 

That’s a question posed by Flo, Irina’s long-abused friend, former convenient fuck, and hopelessly ‘basic’ bisexual who is absolutely still in love with Irina. It’s one I still don’t have a good answer for in the context of this book. It’s these very real, murky, complicated questions which lead you through Clarks narrative, and help to make some of the more blatantly abusive things Irina does almost palatable. 

These elements of Boy Parts may rub some readers the wrong way, with Irina often being dismissive and critical of feminism and ‘woke’ culture. While one could take Clark’s critiquing of (particularly fourth wave) feminism as offensive, I think it’s the sort of critique that the current feminist movement appreciates and knows is necessary. While I think you’d struggle to call Irina herself a feminist, I do think this book could be classed as a feminist test, simply by the fact that it exists as art. It is the sort of feminism which allows you to show a truly evil woman – every bit as evil (and as real) as the most abhorrent you’ve ever read about – and to point and say ‘that’s also being a woman’. As Irina herself says, “I wonder what I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat. Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a mark?” 

There are so many elements of this book which I love but haven’t yet covered. Flo and Finch are fantastic supporting characters, each who feel as fully realised and complex as Irina herself. But of course, the spotlight shines on Irina, so we only see subtle hints of their depths. Over the course of a couple of nights out with these two, we see Irina’s disdain for their feelings and penchant for extinguishing her cigarettes in their weak spots. And then, there’s Irina’s relationship with Eddie from Tesco. 

Eddie is initially portrayed as a mostly likeable (if not irritatingly pathetic) character. Like a young boy who can’t swim but is pushed into the pool before his friends, every interaction with Irina leaves him gasping for breath; clearly panicked, but laughing along, trying not to show how scared he truly was. He is a soft, geeky boy, and Irina’s favourite new toy. But even he has ugly parts which get exposed. He also has one of my favourite quotes from the book. In a message to Irina, he writes “I don't know if you realise how you speak to people sometimes, the way you feed people table scraps. I know that's that what I get from you, table scraps, but because it's scraps from your table, it's better than a 3 course meal with someone else. And you've given me glimpses into your life, your real life, and I wonder if it's your fault. I wonder if you've got anything but scraps to give.” 

So, finally, the prose of this book is wonderful. The two quotes I included might give you a small taste, but it’s written in a way that feels incredibly modern, making use of references that don’t make you cringe, and with a sharp, devilish tongue which teases and endears you, before clobbering you with some truly disturbing sights. 

I cannot recommend this book enough. 

Artificial Conditioning is the second book in The Murderbot Diaries, and I cannot recommend it enough. 

It takes the elements I loved from the first one, dials them up a couple of notches, then improves on the first by giving Murderbot more time to reflect on what it is, what it might want, and what it means to be a Rogue Murderbot. Throw in the loveable sidekick, a gigantic cargo vessel called ART (Asshole Research Transport) and you've got one of the weirdest and most charming buddy comedies I've seen.

I absolutely loved ART as a character,

and I'm devastated it doesn't stay with Murderbot at the end of this book

. Their relationship is funny from the start, with some genuinely laugh out loud moments (well, a mild snort, which in my opinion is basically the same thing). I enjoyed Murderbot

having body modifications made to it with the help of ART

, and you could feel it wrestling with what it knew it needed to do, worrying about what making changes could mean for it. 

ART was written wonderfully, providing help, banter, and gentle parenting of Murderbot when necessary. As with the previous book, if I have to give a criticism it's that the human characters were "meh".  But this time the plot linked in much more closely with Murderbot itself, and I think that made it much more enjoyable. 

This book manages to move at absolutely blinding speed, I read it in a few hours over two days, and at no point did I want to put it down and do something else. Highly recommended, even if you only thought the first in the series was "okay". 

This short romp takes us through some industrial espionage on an unexplored planet where we gain insight into Murderbots' feelings about itself, humans, and the mundanity of work.

All Systems Red is a punchy introduction to the universe of Murderbot. We follow Murderbot as they try to navigate awkward interactions with humans, regular interactions with humans, and avoiding humans wherever possible - unless they're the ones on the entertainment feed.

Wells sets up a world that feels very real, despite our very limited view. Murderbot itself is (probably unintentionally) funny, thinks about things in a different way to regular humans, and is socially awkward, introverted, and - let's be honest - overflowing with autism. Murderbot is also a bit depressed and socially anxious, and frankly I'm yet to meet anyone under the age of 35 who isn't at least one of those things.

On the negative side, we are introduced to a small number of characters who don't all manage to feel quite as fleshed out as I would have liked, due to the focus on plot rather than character development for the sake of pacing. This would be fine had I liked the overall plot more. It was fine, but despite sounding very good on paper, I wasn't as interested in it as I was the world and characters enveloping it. 

Overall a fun, short introduction to the character that leaves you wanting more.