Platform Decay by Martha Wells

Here are some of the good bits from the new Murderbot novel, Platform Decay. I’m leaving out context, so I hope no big plot points are revealed.

I looked at Farai, and she said, “They’re looking for rogue SecUnits. Rogue SecUnits are always alone.”
Well, fuck. I hate it when the humans are right. I sent two of my intel drones to cover Naja and Sofi, and we started to walk. (p. 147)

Speaking of rogue SecUnits,

I sent: I don’t have a governor module and if you fuck up my retrieval I will fucking tear you apart, now get the hell out of here you asshole. I included a packet with some of my basic codes (fooling weapons scanners, taking control of cameras and drones, the original version of walk-like-a-human, etc.) And find some different clothes! (p. 95)

When things are getting a little feisty:

“SecUnit.” I thought Farai was going to tell me not to use violence, or don’t kill humans who are trying very hard to kill us or something. Mensah’s family had never really understood … anything about me.
Instead, Farai said with grim conviction, “I want you to do whatever you have to to keep those motherless shits away from my daughter.”
Fuck yes. (p. 119)

And while this episode in SecUnit’s life is particularly sweary, or at least seemed that way to me, it hasn’t lost its knack for understatement.

In front of the station, my hauler bot had run into the armored vehicle so successfully, it had decided to repeat the experience several times. (p. 201)

And much as SecUnit would like to be a solo operator and then get back to watching its media, the humans are a key part of the team.

Naja, standing with her mobility device and the pile of coats, bags, and tired and/or traumatized juveniles, said, “Give me a gun, too.”
“No,” Farai and I both said at the same time. I had a drone circling and I could see that neither of us had taken our eyes off the human guard or changed expressions. He was starting to sweat.
Sofi, tired and sleepy, leaned against Naja. “Nanna, you’re not allowed to shoot anybody anymore, second mom told you, remember?”
Naja patter her absently. “Second mom isn’t here right now.” (pp. 214–15)

Platform Decay doesn’t stop, and it barely ever slows down enough for the characters to catch their breath. At just under 250 pages, this eighth Murderbot book counts as a short novel rather than a novella, but it’s as tightly written as any of the shorter tales in the series. Wells skips context and background to put readers immediately in the thick of things, with SecUnit on a mission to retrieve some of Mensah’s family from an unfortunate situation. It’s initially accompanied by Three, something of a clone that SecUnit and ART jointly created a couple of books ago, with code from both of them. Don’t say that Three is a child of the two of them. Just don’t. SecUnit would definitely say that reproduction is gross.

Amidst the non-stop action, Wells is doing other good things with the series. Most importantly, while SecUnit and its preferred humans are at the center of the story, they are far from the center of the setting. Most of Platform Decay is set on a gigantic and very old space station that completely encircles the planet below. This torus has an immense number of sectors. Platform Decay only shows a handful of them, and the story has nothing to do with the fate of the torus as a whole. In fact, there are many conflicts within and between sectors, conflicts that SecUnit is doing its best to keep out of completely. It would be happiest if the rest of the world would just ignore it and its humans entirely, and let it get on with its job of retrieving the humans.

No such luck, of course, first because SecUnit’s opponents are not complete dunderheads and second because the other conflicts don’t stop or even slow down for SecUnit and company. As far as the contenders in these other conflicts are concerned, they are the main characters, and these other people running around at odd times trailing a certain amount of chaos are just in the way. SecUnit and its associated humans are who the reader cares about, but Wells admirably shows their place in the fictional universe, and it is not central.

Next, as one of the excerpts above hints, SecUnit is no longer the only one with a hacked governor module. The prospect of more and more jailbroken SecUnits points toward real change in the worlds around the Murderbot stories. Not only is Three something new, for which SecUnit bears a certain amount of responsibility, but more newly freed SecUnits may be finding their way in the worlds. If the earlier stories in the series were about SecUnit coming to terms with being a free person, future tales may be about what happens when it is no longer one of a kind, that its actions may have had greater consequences than it reckoned with.

Finally, Wells puts SecUnit into a situation in which ART’s immense resources are no help at all. Instead of leveling up the opposition as SecUnit and companions gain more capabilities, she limits the usefulness of the capabilities, so that SecUnit is still in danger and has to use its wits to stay alive and, one hopes, accomplish the mission. It’s very good at what it does, but it does get caught flat-footed a few times, and that’s of a piece with the other characters having their own agendas, and their own abilities, of which SecUnit is not completely aware. It makes for tense and exciting reading, which is exactly what I hope for from the Murderbot Diaries.

I tore through Platform Decay in about a day, and I expect that I will happily do so again.

++++

Platform Decay is the eighth Murderbot book, and not a very good place to start. I’m finally keeping up with the proper order, after reading the first seven books 2-5-6-1-3-4-7, an approach I can’t really recommend. Begin at the beginning with All Systems Red.