Give me a prickly narrator who would rather be left alone with their shows, and I am in.
I recently finished Network Effect (Martha Wells), and the thing that stuck with me is not the plot. It is the voice. I only clocked this time around that most of the Murderbot Diaries are narrated after the fact. Murderbot is recounting what already happened, which means it gets to editorialize, undercut its own feelings, and skip ahead whenever a moment gets too sincere. That is such a human thing to do. We do not hand our vulnerability to just anyone. Being seen can feel like giving away a bit of your power.
So every time Murderbot is exasperated that it has a feeling, and then more depressed when it realizes it actually has to deal with the feeling, I recognized something. I think a lot of us do. Maybe the neurodivergent crowd most of all. Is that part of the reason Murderbot likes Dr. Mensah so much, that she creates a space that lets it (Murderbot) decide what and when to share?
Network Effect is the fifth book and the first full novel in the series, and it swept the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. But the scale is not why I loved it. This is character-driven science fiction. It is for readers who like people and want a break from saving the galaxy from one more overpowered enemy. It is probably not for world-building completists, or plot-addicts who want a story of a hero conquering kingdoms in the name of [insert honourable reason]. (That is not a typo.)
It also left me thinking about consent. A SecUnit is not supposed to boss its clients around. When a client is about to wander into something with teeth, the SecUnit hauls them clear, then explains what is happening and asks them to please hold still and stop helping. Murderbot narrates this the way the rest of us narrate a group project, with visible suffering. When Murderbot hacks its own governor, it keeps that rule for the humans but finally claims it for itself too, deciding what to share and when, so others can no longer pull information or action out of it.
Early on in the series, it is clear that Murderbot is fond of the folks from Preservation. Is it because they treat consent as something to protect, which makes them the opposite of the Corporation Rim, where a SecUnit is just property?
Two things I keep turning over. Why do you think Murderbot really avoids being vulnerable, self-protection or something else? And how would the world be different if consent checks were an everyday thing?
