Fugitive Telemetry

... and in this respect, how easily I can convince myself to pick up a book out of this Murderbotseries, how I look forward to it, to the fun while reading, makes this series, even if it's small, comparable in my eyes to the fun I have looking forward to picking up the next Lee Child / Jack Reacher novel, or more literaric, picking up one of the 75 books in Georges Simenon's Maigret series. Wells Murderbot might not have the status of these long series yet, for sure. But I look forward to the next part from Wells as much as I do when picking up one of those others, great series. That's quite a praise, believe me.

Another good read in the murderbot series, not much story arch but a good story.

Although this was published after "Network Effect" it's set before the events in that book so I decided to read it first. It's a murder mystery with Muderbot investigating which sounds like a fun premise. Unfortunately, I felt it fell kind of flat. It's not as well written as the first four novellas. Some of the descriptions feel cumbersome and there's a lot of stuff in parentheses which hampers the flow of the prose. The case itself is interesting, though, and had several twists I didn't see coming. All in all, an okay read.

I realize I might be a bit of an outlier with this one, but I felt this was a decidedly mixed experience. I loved "All Systems Red", and thought Murderbot was probably the most relatable character I'd come across in fiction, but the subsequent novellas were rather less satisfying and I'm afraid this one is no exception. There's still a little of the charm of the first book, but it does rather feel submerged in exposition and parenthetical asides.

This is a bit of a 'flashback' novella set when Murderbot's first few weeks in Preservation. It was a neat chance to see more of how Preservation works in comparison to the Corporate Rim. As for the investigation itself, I had an inkling as to who the culprit was, but not the motive or the how and regardless it was still enjoyable.