Murderbot!!! When I started reading this book, the first novel after four novellas, I did wonder whether this story would truly feel like a full novel after so many shorter adventures. And the answer is that it really did! It built on the first four novellas a lot, but the emotional and logistical arc of both Murderbot and the people and other AIs in its universe really demanded a full novel's worth of exploration.
After three adventures where Murderbot basically took a very dangerous gap year and learned important things about itself, it was reunited with its clients/people/certainly not friends. It then goes on another adventure that's even bigger and scarier, reunites with a character from one of those three novellas, and discovers that as much as it hates having feelings it does in fact have them. One of the central joys of this series from the very first novella is the contrast between the extremely dry narrative voice of a not-person who thinks humans are inexplicable idiots and its continual reckoning with its own emotions and desires. A sheer delight! I think this is my favorite of the series since the first novella itself.
Grade: A
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