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Ok, I think I'm going to take a short breather before I tackle the next in this series. The stories are starting to feel a bit samey and Murderbot's prejudices about humans and other bots are grating a bit.

This one was OK. The plot felt less well-formed than All Systems Red. Murderbot’s relationship with ART jumped implausibly from ART being controlling to cooperating. Solving the Tlacey problem with violence felt like a cop-out.

One of the things I like about recent sf is that it doesn’t feel the need to adhere to the old tropes. The protagonist’s secret comes out, and unlike in old sf where there would have been hand-wringing and ostracism, the allies accept the new information, accept the protagonist, and the story moves on. Old sf would definitely have killed off one of the protagonist’s group for shock value, but that isn’t a given nowadays. Old sf likes to explore the axis of the powerful against the underdog, but now the force driving the story is bureaucracy, opportunism, and selfishness. I like this first Murderbot story because it (the story, but also Murderbot) is relatable.