From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

"Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries, 8)" by Martha Wells
https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Decay-Murderbot-Diaries-8/dp/1250827000

Book number eight of a eight book series of science fiction novellas,
short stories, and full length novels. I read and reread the well
printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2026 that I bought
new from Amazon. I look forward to new books in the series.

Murderbot and Three are sneaking onto a huge old toroidal space station surrounding a heavily mined planet. They are going to rescue some
people but, as usual, Murphy changes the rules and makes things more complicated.

Murderbot is a SecUnit, a cyborg with a cloned and severely modified
human brain. The brain is supplemented by the AIs in the cpu embedded
in its body. There are lungs, there is a blood mixture with a
synthetic, there is human skin over the entire body, there is a
face, there is hair on the head and eyebrows. Everything else is
machine. Somehow, the blood is enriched with electricity as there is no stomach or intestines. But, there are arteries and veins to keep the
skin and brain alive. It has a energy gun in each arm and several
cameras. The SecUnit can sustain severe damage to everything but the
head and still survive.

There is a personal MedSystem that continuously monitors the health of
the SecUnit and gives constant updates to the SecUnit. And controls the clamps on the various arteries and veins throughout the torso and
extremities of the SecUnit in case of damage. And shuts down the
SecUnit in case of total system failure. Or reboots the SecUnit if needed.

There is a personal SecSystem that has a threat awareness module that continuously updates the SecUnit on any and all threats it perceives.
And monitors and controls up to thirty drones that the SecUnit carries
in various pockets as most of the drones are rather small and stealthy.

There is a Governor that monitors what the SecUnit is doing versus the
current orders (verbal or embedded) and punishes it using pain sensors
in the human brain until it complies. And the governor will fry the
brain of the SecUnit when if it leaves the vicinity of the controlling authority or the controlling authority leaves vicinity of the SecUnit.

Murderbot is a self named SecUnit due to an unfortunate circumstance
with 57 miners on a remote moon. It has hacked its governor and no
longer allows the governor to give it orders or inflict pain. It
prefers to internally watch its 35,000 hours of downloaded media such as episodes of "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" and "WorldHoppers (aka Stargate)". Even though it has a face, it does not like to interface
with humans, yes, very introverted. It will follow human orders if it
sees fit to do so.

Murderbot is an incredibly interesting character. It handles horrible situations easily and personal interactions difficultly. Like I said, interesting.

There is a much better review at:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/all-my-empathys-a-disaster

Warning: There is violence and death in the books. Books one through
four are a series of novellas, not regular length books. Book five is a regular length novel, book six is back to the novella, and books seven
and eight are full length novels. If starting the series, I would start
at book #1. You can buy a collection of the first four hardbacks at a
nice discount.

https://www.amazon.com/Murderbot-Diaries-Artificial-Condition-Protocol/dp/1250784271/

The author has a website at:
https://www.marthawells.com/

I suspect that Martha Wells is still affected by her breast cancer due
to a comment at the beginning of the book about this being a difficult
year. I wish her the best.

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars (903 reviews)

Lynn

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