PLATFORM DECAY is the eighth book in Martha Wells's beloved Murderbot Diaries series, plus there is a short story and a novella.  At only 256 pages, PLATFORM DECAY feels like a novella rather than a book, even though the word count is higher than a novella would strictly be.  All but one of the Murderbot books, however, are very short, so series readers hopefully won’t be surprised by the abbreviated feel of PLATFORM DECAY.  NETWORKK EFFECT (book #5) is the sole book that feels like a full book at 352 pages.

The reader is dumped abruptly into the story as usual, following the misadventures of this cynical SecUnit who hacked its own governor module and is slowly becoming more and more human.  The unrelenting dry wit and snark of Murderbot remain delightful! What is less delightful, however, are the unremitting parenthetical thoughts.  They have been used more and more frequently in this series, until I am frankly choking on them in PLATFORM DECAY.  In chapter one, there are sometimes three or four parenthetical thoughts per sentence, which annoyed me and kept yanking me out of the narrative.

PLATFORM DECAY feels like a short installation in the continued escapades of Murderbot without much character advancement, just action.  There’s at least a small amount of humanoid advancement of Murderbot, who now has an Emotion Check module.  Of course, Murderbot rolls its mental eyes at the frequent emotion checks occurring, but that’s another way for Wells to up the snark factor, which is fun.

Murderbot reluctantly agrees to lead a rescue mission with Three, another rogue SecUnit, to extract some humans from an enormous and dangerous spaceport.  Murderbot has to deal with unfamiliar human children (insert gasp here) and the continued used-sock smells of other humans.  There’s plenty of backstabbing and intrigue by the bad humans.  Action, humor, and  character- driven storytelling abound! Wells’ PLATFORM DECAY feels like a fun short installment in a weekly tv show, without significant advancement of plot.