The SecUnit returns for another enjoyably stressful security mission in the latest chapter of the Murderbot Diaries. Martha Wells, multiple award-winning author, needs little introduction to science fiction readers, but other folks looking for a fun space-themed crime story – should start with an earlier book. PLATFORM DECAY, book eight, takes up shortly after the end of SYSTEM COLLAPSE, with a much smaller cast and a familiar enemy. Knowledge of the continuing story is assumed.

Heeding its risk assessment module, Murderbot uses Three – another rogue SecUnit – as a diversion to get onto a torus, meaning a doughnut- shaped giant space station around a planet. When we get a view of the planet, there’s not much left of it, as everything has been hacked into chunks and used to build the habitation areas on the torus. Each large section – a day’s travel by train or flight transport – is controlled by a different entity, including Barish-Estranza, the mining and labour corporation Murderbot’s human friends previously fought. Right now, B-E has abducted two of Preservation leader Mensah’s family. She has engaged the cyborg security consultants to recover them.

When Murderbot manages to link up with the humans, a complication ensues (of course), so it also has to take some additional human juveniles. These are good kids. You wouldn’t want them sent to a mining camp. The brutal methods of B-E become clear, and the SecUnit, Farai, and a senior lady, Naja, who has a great deal of pluck and never once says to go ahead and leave her, need to get everyone out of there now. Did I mention the several days of travel?  

So yes, it’s a fun road trip with feed maps, hacked weapons scanners, flying pirates, emotion checks and a large number of guns being used by the bad guys. Despite its name, Murderbot mostly tries not to kill people, and when performing a stealth extraction of kidnapped victims, you don’t want the security staff hunting a murderer. Each zone has a different theme; some are rocky, some jungly, all designed and built; some, however, are falling into decay, as only very basic services like air still work. Three, the newly freed SecUnit, just might be tempted to take a vacation for the first time in its life. We see Three is just awkward, like Murderbot was in book 1, ALL SYSTEMS RED, showing the reader how far the older human-machine cyborg has come by contrast. Coping with human juveniles seems like great progress. Getting them all out alive will be a lot harder. PLATFORM DECAY is long- awaited and a welcome addition to the series.