While 'Fugitive Telemetry' was released after 'Network Effect', the only 'Murderbot' novel so far, it's technically set before it. Frankly, it doesn't matter. Nothing in the novel spoils anything in this fifth novella. Maybe someone acutely focused on internal series chronology may care for a reason I can't see, but realistically you can read them in either order without any problems at all. Now, it does seem crucial that I should read 'Network Effect' before 'System Collapse', the sixth and most recent novella thus far, because there appear to be many shared characters and one story follows on from the other, but that's not a concern here.

In fact, this could even work as an introduction to the series, if someone felt the need, because it's a standalone volume that doesn't particularly rely on what came before. Fresh readers might well wonder who GrayCris is, given that there's a strong fear that what happens here on Preservation Station is their doing in response to what happened in the first four novellas, but not knowing will have absolutely no impact on how much they enjoy this one, which unfolds as a mystery.

It begins with the discovery of a dead human in the mall area. Nobody knows who they are, so it's presumably a visitor who somehow suspiciously kept out of the standard systems. The station has a security team that's run by Senior Officer Indah and they're aware that Murderbot is there too, as private security for Dr. Mensah. They're not particularly happy to have a rogue SecUnit in their midst and they only allowed it after Murderbot promised not to hack the local surveillance or any other station systems, but they're even less happy when Dr. Mensah asks them to work together.

Of course, if you aren't new to the series here, you'll be immediately wondering how anyone with any brain cells thinks that's going to work. Sure enough, while Murderbot officially works with the station security folk, most obviously Officer Aylen, she does a lot more working on her own. After all, she isn't restricted in the same ways as human beings, even if she adheres to her word and so avoids using a lot of the shortcuts that hacking would provide that she would have used anywhere else at all. That just means that a lot of her investigation is done in a more old-fashioned manner. Even so, she's far quicker on her own and naturally shows them up.

As the case progresses, she figures out the scene of the crime, which leads to the discovery that a refugee route exists to funnel slaves off a mining planet. And, in turn, that leads to the discovery that there have to be a bunch of these refugees somewhere on the station, but without a contact any more to take them further. As you might expect, that takes us from science fiction mystery to science fiction action and I'll shut up now so that you can experience this for yourself. Murderbot can always be relied on to deliver solid action with a good side order of snarky berserker chaos.

Ultimately, this is a relatively straightforward novella, not just because we're back at that length but because it's a standalone. This isn't one episode within a four novella story arc, it's a story all on its own that begins, unfolds and wraps up within a hundred and sixty or so pages. Those pages also include plenty of worldbuilding, though that seems like an odd term to use when the location isn't actually a world but a space station situated near a world that we never actually visit. It's an impressive place culturally, outside the Corporation Rim, even if it doesn't seem it physically. It's little surprise to find that it annoys Murderbot.

Of course, most things annoy Murderbot, including most people, so there's plenty of her patented snark on offer here. I noted an instance of three consecutive bracketed asides and gradually found that there are a whole bunch of them, so that first wasn't noteworthy. Am I misremembering or is this an escalation in aside nesting, even if they're not technically nested within broader brackets? The first aside remains an aside to an observation, the second aside an aside to the first aside and the third aside an aside to the second aside that's an aside to the first aside. That still seems akin to nesting to me. Whatever we call it, it's a heck of a lot of fun.

There really isn't much else I can say without venturing into spoiler territory. There's more to the mystery, of course; there's plenty more action still to come; and everything deepens the universe that Martha Wells has created. I liked the approach and the setting and wonder if she will return for further standalone novellas in the future. I'm pretty sure that 'System Collapse' is one, as that deliberately continues the story from 'Network Effect', but the series was never intended to end with that novella anyway. Another, 'Platform Decay', is due next year and I can't imagine that with the wild success of this series, both in book form and on television, it's going away any time soon.

Unfortunately that means that I only have one book left and I'll happily tackle 'System Collapse' in September. Maybe I'll seek out the short stories after that. I believe there are three of them thus far but they haven't been collected, as far as I'm aware, certainly not in the recent collections of novellas that I'm also reviewing this year. 'Compulsory' sits at the very beginning of the series but 'Home' and 'Rapport' apparently fit between the initial four novellas and this one. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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