Platform Decay, by Martha Wells
by
Stuart Holland
Have I mentioned that I love Kevin R. Free? He’s incredible. The sarcasm that drips off his performance is just a joy to listen to. He’s the audiobook narrator, if you haven’t read my previous reviews of the series. (You should read this series.) There is an Apple TV+ Murderbot series and honestly I don’t know how they can crack it compared to Kevin R. Free’s performance in these audiobooks. (And I say that as a fan of Alexander Skarsgaard.)
Anyway, Platform Decay is also interesting story wise. After a brief soujourn into novels back in book 5, now on book 8 we’re truly rolling with the shorter, punchier novellas. Murderbot is once again trying to save some humans and is upset about it. But it can’t just be more of the same - Murderbot’s own internal journey to more emotional range and really accepting that he does have emotions is a lot of fun. Emotion checks from a built in therapy module? Great way to thread that through the story.
And then there’s the humans he’s protecting this time. Murderbot loves to complain that his humans are incompetent, and fair enough, they can’t match his superhuman reflexes and built in arm cannons. But what if his charges weren’t full capacity humans that don’t measure up to him? This time one’s a kid and another is her grandmother, who can still walk, but not for a long time, and certainly not sprint away from a firefight. Both of them bring out different sides of Murderbot. Particularly a child, with their disarming unawareness of Murderbot’s predicaments (both mental and physical) really break through some walls.
At the same time, the frailty of his charges doesn’t detract from the usual action packed sequences that this series does so well.
I’m here for the next one, Martha Wells. And very much looking forward to it.
