#murderbot network effect

[phanerozoicfossilgardener]

Network Effect spoilers:

"Ratthi came to my cabin. I didn't have to let him in, so I did. (I know, I was still getting used to the idea of not minding the fact that a human wanted to talk to me.)" – Martha Wells, Network Effect

This part made me feel so seen I had to put the book down.

[thegreatmachine17]

Their constant petty arguing is cracking me up. Sibling behavior IMO.

[notasouleater]

ART, upon getting visited by Mensah:

[crispinkiss]

this network sure can effect!

[bookwyrminspiration]

my experience reading the murderbot diaries 👍

[fearless-seagull]

Pushing my ART is a giant scary spider agenda

[chaos-has-theories]

I love the scene in Network Effect where Secunit spends a full paragraph explaining that ART doesn't fight fair it goes right for the eyes it doesn't know what a minimum level of response is which it, Secunit, does know, because as a Secunit you have to make sure you don't accidentally murder a client,

and it just goes on forever with the "fight" looming in the background until you're like oh nooooo what did ART do

and then you find out. That Secunit's idea of a disproportionate response. Is tattling to the humans.

[cat-dragron-arts]

It's my art style and I can draw Miki however I want! Also having fun with Dr. Mensah and TargetControlSystem :]

[inkedinserendipity]

just finished re-reading all systems red and the way martha wells' narration directly tracks murderbot's thoughts is, like, diabolical in retrospect.

because on my first read-through, i'll be honest. i did not remember the presaux crew at all. pin-lee and gurathin show up in exit strategy and i, remembering nothing about those two except ":D! presaux friends!" expected them to be like "omg hey murderbot!" because i figured the presaux crew would be excited to see their secunit again. i did not remember pin-lee's temper or gurathin's skepticism. because the presaux crew kinda blurred together for me in the first book. because that's how murderbot saw them too!

all systems red has the most en media res of all en media res beginnings. not just because it starts in the middle of an action sequence, but because it also starts in the middle of an emotional sequence. the survey has been happening, for, what - a couple of weeks? - by the time asr starts. murderbot has already met the crew. they have already formed impressions of it. but, crucially, it has formed almost no opinions of them*.

it's been watching media and half-assing its job. and at this point in murderbot's journey, and therefore its internal narration that forms the text, a human is a human is a human. it is not invested in their work, so we don't hear about the start of their survey. it literally starts paying attention to them when they are in danger and when they start to realize that it is a person, because that is when murderbot has to start paying attention.

and this is why i remembered almost nothing distinct about the presaux crew. there are a lot of crew members, but murderbot spends very little time thinking about them as individuals. so the narration tends to skim over their distinct personalities, because murderbot doesn't really consider them* at all!

and then of course we come to exit strategy and network effect, and the contrast could not be more clear. now it's got opinions about everyone, and because it has a better grasp on their personalities, the narrative does too. oh yes that's arada, wibbly bulwark, the human murderbot trusts to not be overconfident and ignore its advice. that's gurathin. it doesn't like gurathin. that's pin-lee, the combatunit of lawyers, well-dressed and sharp-tongued. and of course, that's ratthi (tag: bestie!!), who stays in the car because he will get himself killed by something.

and of course, there's dr mensah. but she was always an exception.

*dr mensah is, as she always is when it comes to murderbot, an exception to this generalization. that's tag: intrepid explorer like blorbo from my shows! that you're talking about. even when murderbot mostly tried to avoid humans at all costs, even murderbot paid attention to her. from asr to now, that has been and remains perfectly true.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "Asexual and agender main character. In later books side characters are revealed to be in poly relationship."

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, novella, series, adult

Hunger Pangs series (True Love Bites) by Joy Demorra

In a world of dwindling hope, love has never mattered more...

Captain Nathan J. Northland had no idea what to expect when he returned home to Lorehaven injured from war, but it certainly wasn't to find himself posted on an island full of vampires. An island whose local vampire dandy lord causes Nathan to feel strange things he'd never felt before. Particularly about fangs.

When Vlad Blutstein agreed to hire Nathan as Captain of the Eyrie Guard, he hadn't been sure what to expect either, but it certainly hadn't been to fall in love with a disabled werewolf. However Vlad has fallen and fallen hard, and that's the problem.

Torn by their allegiances--to family, to duty, and the age-old enmity between vampires and werewolves--the pair find themselves in a difficult situation: to love where the heart wants or to follow where expectation demands.

The situation is complicated further when a mysterious and beguiling figure known only as Lady Ursula crashes into their lives, bringing with her dark omens of death, doom, and destruction in her wake.

And a desperate plea for help neither of them can ignore.

Thrown together in uncertain times and struggling to find their place amidst the rising human empire, the unlikely trio must decide how to face the coming darkness: united as one or divided and alone. One thing is for certain, none of them will ever be the same.

Fantasy, romance, paranormal, series, adult

[desultorydenouement]

murderbot is peak queer rep because it’s about living as an inherently transgressive form of being, it’s about the complexity of passing, or the complexity of hiding, or the nuance of never fitting binaries and not wanting to even when fitting those binaries is seen as “better”, and it’s about making people uncomfortable just by existing, it’s about measuring forms of freedom and having to decide which you’ll save and which you’ll sacrifice. but most importantly it’s peak queer rep because murderbot is free for like five minutes and it immediately attracts the nearest supposedly-rare transgressive-illegal-superbot (ART) in a hundred light year radius to be its best friend, and what’s that if not your classic Queer On Queer Magnetism

[tadpole-art]

Been reading Murderbot :)

[rosenkranz-isnt-dead]

murderbot, for three and a half books: I miss my friend ART. my bestie ART. I wish my buddy ART were here. if something happened to my best friend ART I would kill everyone on this ship and then myself.

murderbot, when asked if ART is its friend: ugh no?? obviously not?? you silly humans and your relationships. I'm going to go sulk in the corner now.

[hellofriendhawke]

The expressions you give murderbot are top-tier, its face is doing things all the time and I love it

MB: That's it, I'm writing a code to freeze any facial expressions before they happen.

(@i-can-kazoo 1 million years later ... Sorry it took so long to answer your ask, I had to re-learn to draw almost entirely lmao but I was glad to get an excuse to draw my favorite construct again.)

[lostsometime]

SecUnit 3 worrying about its first-ever retrieval mission done as a free agent like “I want to get a good grade in Rogue SecUnit retrieval, which might be normal to want but I don’t know because there’s no protocol for that”

[kagekanecavi]

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this but I just got hit by a huge parallel in Network Effect

Early on, ART tells Murderbot, regarding Amena, "tell her you care for her. Human juveniles need to hear that from their caregivers" (paraphrasing here, i don't have the text in front of me)

Later, Ratthi insists that they show Murderbot the video surrounding its retrieval. Murderbot is absolutely astounded by all the effort gone into getting it back

Clearly juvenile humans aren't the only ones who need it spelled out