20 pages into Murderbot 5, I think I had enough Murderbot for foreseeable future. All the action scenes are like watching a sentient cybertruck running over whole heaps of average humans, the power fantasy comparable to those terrible wuxia mobile games made for middle aged sad men, seeing a level 100 protagonist obliterating level 1 nooks is really not satisfying. Just sad.

And it adds nothing to the whole utterly mindblowing concepts like "slavery is bad". Maybe I'm just not from a cultural background where I normalise the belief that slavery isn't current anymore, while also normalise refusal to pay restaurant workers a living wage, or seriously believe housewives don't actually put in extensive unpaid labour.

While every subject matter can be done interestingly, and I don't mind the whole Adventure Of A Resourceful Socially Anxious Sentient Killing Machine Not Quite Legally Recognised As Human, Who Also Has Weirdly Intense Attachment Tendencies, post So I'm A Spider this is really just paler in every way possible. The observation and problem solving are weak, the entire morality is based on They Who Is Nice To Protagonist Is Morally Good, and just too safe and too bland to be actually funny or creative. Apparently "then the code was hacked" for every problem ever gets old at 50th time.

It's worth pointing out that one on one versus normal people/creatures in So I'm A Spider also got really boring by about book four. Turned out it's a great idea to just not write about those anymore than the daily dish washing. Instead keeping the fight scenes to equally matched opponents makes everyone's lives easier.

#Murderbot