Christian’s Subsection of the Internet

Network Effect is another instalment of the Murderbot series, and this time we get a full length novel! It’s different from the novellas, but for me, it wasn’t quiiiite different enough. Given that I want to keep things spoiler-free even if someone were to happen upon this review before reading the first book, I don’t want to say anything specific about what happens, but our friend, Murderbot, finds themselves in what starts out being a sticky and unfortunate situation and just keeps on getting worse. The strongest part of this book is the relationship between the non-humans - the discovery (and the unavoidable exploration of) the feelings that come with those relationships. We also get an interesting play on where a personality fits in relative to a person (or, say, a robot). The plot that surrounded these interesting ideas, and the action involved in the story getting from point A to B, didn’t quite do it for me. Perhaps the emotional distance Murderbot had to these events also translated to them not feeling real to me, but with a few glorious exceptions Network Effect was never quite a page-turner for me. Though, the exceptions were glorious: the… the 2.0 section of the story was a great sequence. Overall, and I’m being harsh just because of how high my expectations of this series are at this point, the book felt a bit like a novella and a half that was extended to make a novel. That might be a me-problem rather than a problem with the book: perhaps I got too used to the bite-sized instalments of Murderbot. I still love, and would highly recommend, this series. And whether the next books are novellas or novels (I haven’t checked yet), I look forward to the continuation!

Another solid Slough House instalment! Spook Street is very different from Real Tigers, but what it doesn’t have in the form of real-time action is more than makes up for in gradual reveals of history and information from the past. There’s much less double-crossing going on in this book, but there are several twists - most of which I genuinely did not see coming. It’s also obvious that there aren’t any sacred cows in this series, which is promising given how long I want it to go on for. I need to catch up so that I can start eagerly awaiting the release of the next book.

Bienes Historie is the kind of book that slowly drags you in, and, before you know it, it’s gone from being a casual, entertaining, story to a plot where you need to know what’s happening next. The book feels like it’s describing what is happening in everyday life. We’re not set up to witness something extraordinary, we’re just following along with the lives of the three characters this book jumps between: one from the past, one in the present, and one in the future. A theme emerges in the three stories (I don’t think it would be spoiling too much to reveal that the overall theme is “Bees”), and suddenly, you’re witnessing three very different kinds of drama. I had expected this book to be quite different. I remember talk from when it came out of it being an education in how the lives of bees work, and an informative book on the whole issue of bees disappearing. I did get those things, from the book, but they felt like they were part of the story, rather than being the driving force. Yes, there is an important message underpinning what’s going on in this book, but it very much reads as a story that’s built on the premise of those facts rather than a book that’s trying to convince you of them. The stories feel human and real. There’s subtle emotion, and words left unsaid in a way that leaves a nice, ambiguous, tension in scenes that might otherwise have felt a little too theatrical. The characters also feel complicated and interesting. Bienes Historie is a very good book. It’s not fast-paced, generally not very dramatic, and won’t keep you on the edge of your seat. But it will make you want to read on to see what happens with the characters, and it will leave you wanting more. Fortunately, it’s the first in a series of four!

Aaaaand, we’re back. With Real Tigers, the Slow Horses series returns from the slightly preposterous movie-like second book of the series to the gritty, down-and-dirty espionage feel that I liked in the first book, and am hoping to get from the rest. There’s enough double/triple crossing going on here that an attempt at a spoiler free synopsis would require a much better writer than I am, but there are basically levels of secret stuff going on, with people from the different levels tripping over each other when they try to do what they think they should be doing. This is the kind of story that could easily get muddled, but it manages to balance on a fine line between the plot being chaotic without the story itself feeling chaotic. There are some great twists, and some compelling character-development for several of our Slow Horses main characters. However, for a thriller, the book is a little light on thrills, even when the story is firing on all cylinders. I appreciate the humour that infuses these books, but I think that a feeling of never knowing whether a setup will end up in a punch or a punch-line distracts from a feeling of dread and tenseness that should also be part of a book like this. The book is exciting, the book is very funny, but the book doesn’t quite feel thrilling. There’s also quite the setup here for the next book in the series, and while the series hasn’t gone on for long enough that I really knew what to expect, it looks like the path ahead may be less formulaic than I assumed a series of books such as these would be. I look forward to finding out!

A quick, short, sweet, novella from the Slow Horses universe with just the right amount of action for it’s length. In this one we follow a “cleanup” after the death of a former agent, which takes a somewhat inconvenient turn for his handler who it seems may not have been fully aware of what this thought-to-be-former spy was up to during his retirement. This is a very quick read, and a nice little universe-expander for the Slow Horses series. Along with some other characters from the Slow Horses series, Jackson Lamb also features in it, and even though he’s only there for a little bit - it adds to the impression of him being a man who is more than he (very deliberately) seems.