A review by maeverose
Network Effect by Martha Wells

4.0

The beginning was good, it dragged a bit in the middle for me but  picked up in the last third and I ended up liking it a lot

I loved the almost horror-esque moment at the end.

I love Murderbot

I love it’s reactions to people’s concern for it, and I love that we got to see so much emotional character development in this book. I would give Murderbot the whole world if I could.

I love ART

I love their ‘relationship’ and I’m curious if it really will remain purely platonic or not. Murderbot seems very ace-coded so I assume it will but the way they kept using parallels to romantic relationships is making me wonder.

I already like 3

There are an unnecessary amount of characters and that leaves us with a lot of them being underdeveloped. I do wish I had a better sense of each of their personalities.

I’m gonna have to re read the first book because I don’t remember if they ever fully explained alien remnants. I know they were brought up in the first book but it’s been over a year since I read that one and I’m a little lost on what the alien remnants are exactly. I wanna know more. They seem to be both organic and code? They can infect AI like a computer virus but also humans like a viral infection.. how does that even work? Do the characters even know?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Medical content, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Sexual content and Excrement

Note on the gore: it’s pretty much in line with the rest of the series in that it’s written in that not-super-descriptive robotic type of way, but it’s definitely a bit more descriptive and more abundant in this book.