Letting the cat right out of the bag, I think Platform Decay is pretty bad. Martha Wells’ Murderbot series has been one of my favorite stories in recent years, even though it feels like a book that was split up to make more money at this point. The last two entries (Fugitive Telemetry and System Collapse) were both a slight step down from the first five incredible installments, but Platform Decay felt like being thrown off a cliff. The most generous description I could give of the eighth part of the Murderbot series is that it’s a bad filler episode.
Normally, this is the part of my reviews where I dive into the plot of the book, and often, summarizing novels late in a series has spoiler difficulties. Not the case here. Platform Decay is about Murderbot needing to rescue a handful of humans off of an enormous solar system-sized torus. The plot involves them a) getting in, b) finding the people, c) running around a lot, and d) getting out. Almost none of these pieces are interesting.
When I think of what makes the Murderbot story stand out, to me, it is the personality of Murderbot, the sharp humor, the unique POV Murderbot brings, the clever introspection, and the witty dialogue. Almost none of these things are present in Platform Decay. It is a 200+ page action sequence where things are continuously described to you in a deeply unengaging way.
The premise of the story feels recycled. We have already seen Murderbot have to rescue humans from this sort of situation before. We don’t even get the witty back-and-forth of Murderbot trying to convince and move its charges throughout; there is almost no interaction between Murderbot and other characters. The stakes are surprisingly low, and the action is extremely uninteresting. We have seen Murderbot tackle measurably more difficult situations and stakes than this in multiple other books, so I had a hard time imagining any scenario other than them just dogwalking every single obstacle they come across (which is exactly what happens). This, in and of itself, wouldn’t be back-breaking for the story, because Murderbot has always lived and died by the incredible personality of its protagonist–but that is completely absent. This book is just a grocery list of things that happen that we check off as we move through.
On top of all of this, the story isn’t anchored in almost any way that feels like it meaningfully matters to the larger part of the series. We start in media res and then just never really explain why we are doing anything; things just happen. The book is about 250 pages long, and there are about 20 pages total in this sum where I saw glimpses of what I loved about the original story. Muderbot’s interactions with Three all fall into this category, and Three’s burgeoning personality is criminally underexplored and should have been the guiding light of this story. All in all, Platform Decay feels completely skippable and like it was made from inklings of an idea of something Wells wanted to explore that she got pressure to expand on. I would have rather read the script for a full episode of Sanctuary Moon than this.
Rating: Platform Decay – 3.5/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
