Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Network Effect by Martha Wells

29 reviews

mandkips's review

adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, and Death

Moderate: Grief, Body horror, and Kidnapping

Minor: Slavery

boglord's review

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Blood, Gun violence, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Medical content, Xenophobia, Slavery, Abandonment, Violence, Gore, Medical trauma, and Trafficking

Minor: Death and Emotional abuse

wilybooklover's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Blood, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Medical content, Confinement, Death, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Kidnapping, Grief, and Body horror

Minor: Colonisation, Slavery, and Adult/minor relationship

divine529's review

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I absolutely adored the Murderbot novel. 

This is basically a typical Murderbot story with more content and an emphasis on it's various relationships and I adored it on ever level. And I loved seeing ART again. That is all. 

I'll absolutely be reading this again and I can't wait to dive into the next installment. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Violence, Death, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Murder

scifi_rat's review

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Murder, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, and Gun violence

Minor: Slavery, Abandonment, and Blood

purplepenning's review

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Gore, Blood, Colonisation, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

Minor: Xenophobia

dolores_madil's review

emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I absolutely love this. My biggest criticism has been that I wanted more content from the novellas. This gave me that the emotions, the character development, the exploring of relationships yes is all I have to say. I am fully and unconditionally in love with Murderbot and will gladly be its life partner. Everyone who said it was too long and could have been cut down was wrong because then we would have lost all the character development and rareness that was in this book. So the novellas up to now have been about moving the plot forward and learning about Murderbot along the way but at the same time, the short word count has also let Murderbot be like I don’t want to deal with emotions. In this novel, they were forced in many different ways to confront their emotions and to a certain extent deal with them or at least not ignore them. Murderbot is an android and in this world AI’s of all kinds can become sentient and this is a new concept not just for the many different types of AI but also for humans. For the first time, we really get to fully see and experience it not just acknowledge it and then push it off because we have to give the plot more page time. So far one of best books I have ready this year. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Cursing, Deadnaming, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Genocide, and Torture

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

anntharai's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

When I say I can’t get enough Murderbot I really really mean it. 

Incredible story wonderfully written and phenomenal characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Murder, Medical content, Blood, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Grief, and Slavery

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

The adult/minor relationship is entirely very minimal, it’s brief and the minor involved doesn’t get hurt (

as murderbot puts a stop to it before the adult can do anything

but the grooming is discussed in a matter of fact way. Which, while technically minor, might be very upsetting to someone who has experienced that.

frantic_vampire's review

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I’ve really been savoring my reading experience with Network Effect. I love Murderbot so much, and getting to read a full length novel in this series? It was just amazing! And a totally different reading experience from the novellas. It felt so different and yet exactly the same.

I loved getting to see ART/Perihelion again! And we got to see more of ART’s crew and what they actually do. I also loved seeing Murderbot having a contract on its own terms and…you know, everything going to hell like usual. I also really liked that we got to see Murderbot making new friends! I have to say that this book had some of the most hilarious bits of dialogue in this series. I loved that Murderbot’s humans just straight up thought MB and ART were a thing for a minute there. I just about died laughing! But I also really loved the moment that everyone realized that ART was Murderbot’s best friend. It was so nice.

Honestly, this book was such a fun read. I can’t wait to see what else this series has to offer. And I can’t wait to see more of 3 in the future. This one is getting a solid four and a half stars!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Medical trauma, Violence, Abandonment, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Abandonment

deedireads's review

adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Network Effect was my favorite Murderbot story so far. I think the full-novel length gives it space to appeal to those who don’t always gravitate toward hard sci-fi.

For you if: You are a Murderbot fan!

FULL REVIEW:

Network Effect is the fifth story in the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, but the first full-length novel. It’s nominated for this year’s Hugo Award, which is what put the series on my radar in the first place.

As the dust jacket says: “Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.” Murderbot is a SecUnit, short for security unit (so like, a badass fighter sentient robot) who hacked the part of its code that forces it to obey commands. That gives it the freedom to start really developing into a person of its own in all the ways that count (and watch as many soap operas as it can). Most of the characters in Network Effect are from the novellas, so you’ll definitely want to read those before you read this one. But if you liked the novellas (no spoilers, but especially the second one), you’ll like this one!

In fact, I liked the first four novellas, but I’m happy to say that this was my favorite Murderbot story so far. As someone who doesn’t read much hard sci-fi, the focus on how all the tech works was sometimes too heavy for me in the novellas. But this full-novel length gives Network Effect more space for narrative elements I do tend to like — development of secondary characters, a layered mystery, subplots. I hope she’ll write more Murderbot novels in the future!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Gun violence

Moderate: Body horror and Grief

Minor: Medical content