Jensi 🏴🚩 • he/him reviewed Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #6)
The best one yet
5 stars
Maybe it is bc of the fact that the last installment wasn't for me, but I think this crime story worked really well.

Martha Wells: Fugitive Telemetry (EBook, 2021, Tom Doherty Associates)
No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.
When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)
Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!
eBook, 176 pages
English language
Published April 26, 2021 by Tom Doherty Associates.
Maybe it is bc of the fact that the last installment wasn't for me, but I think this crime story worked really well.
Eine Murder-Mystery-Episode, nicht unangenehm, aber sicherlich nicht so gut gelungen wie die bisherigen. Eventuell waren meine Erwartungen zu hoch.
Loved the detective/investigatory angle. Reminds me of some of the old Asimov robot stories in a way, while introducing more of the politics and ethos of Preservation.
Pleasant little bite of Murderbot with some great Pin-Lee moments, but definitely not as heavy (plot wise, or--speaking subjectively--emotionally) as some of the other entries.
... 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.