This is the greatest of the Murderbot books to date, and it’s also the longest. The length works in the book’s favor. Most entries in the Murderbot Diaries are novellas. While there are some really good ones, like Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells had been trying to balance depth with brevity, and she did a really good job of it. Part of the draw of these books is that they’re quick and punchy.

Yet, Network Effect is a much slower burn, and it’s a layered book. It works well in three acts; it begins with elements of space opera and concludes more similarly to Neuromancer than any other book in the series. The book deals with hauntings, contagion, and ghosts in the web.

That the book is longer also allows suspense and questions to build over the course of the text. For instance, we’re left wondering what happened to ART (who was introduced in Artificial Condition) and who these “targets” are. We learn about an abandoned corporate colony, alien intelligence, and the dynamics of infection.

There’s a lot to say about that which is “alien” in this book. In the end, Wells’ depiction of it has lot in common with hiveminds like Star Trek’s “the Borg.” Or, at least, it seems so. The alien elements of the book are really cool, and I hope Wells will dive further into them in future installments.

As with the other Murderbot books, there is a lot of good writing on human social relations. SecUnit very clearly struggles with social anxiety. Moreoever, I find him endlessly relatable: he struggles to talk about how he feels, even when it’s important. Other characters are better about this, but it seems to be a spectrum.

I was so glad that ART was reintroduced in this book. His first appearance was fairly brief, although it’s clear that he had made an impact on SecUnit, given that the protagonist often refers to him in the other books. But, now he’s back in full strength, and we can see how cool of a character he is. He’ll definitely be making appearances in future books, and I’m pleased by that.

The remaining books are much shorter than this one, so I’m sure I’ll fly through them, but the deep-dive that Wells gave us here was well worth the length.