Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries, book 8)
Written by Martha Wells
Narrated by Kevin R. Free
Audiobook published by RB Media
The Skinny: Murderbot performs a daring rescue on a planet-sized space ring, and complains the entire time.
I love Murderbot. and I enjoyed Apple TV’s recent adaptation, but it was really great to get back into my favorite media, Martha Wells’ novellas, particularly as narrated by the superlative Kevin R. Free. And the latest entry in the series, Platform Decay, is just as great as previous entries. The novella opens with Murderbot and fellow rogue secunit Three infiltrating a giant artificial habitation torus around a dead planet. Murderbot is there to rescue hostages, the family of its friend and mentor Dr. Mensah, who were captured by a vengeful corporation. It manages to get them out of their hidden safe house, but now they have bigger problems: Navigating the colossal torus to their exit point without being discovered and recaptured, and a promise to free more captive civilians, including more children, along the way.
Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries are a constant delight, particularly the way they dissect and reinterpret old SFF tropes. Murderbot is less a robot wanting to be human than an artificial being discovering its humanity largely against its will. Murderbot’s narration is full of snarky asides, complaints, and its unique perspective along with its attempts to and struggles with communicating and connecting with others. It is, as always, brilliantly delivered by Kevin R. Free, as over the course of the adventure through a habitation torus divided into multiple different zones, each with different owners, regulations, modes of transport, and even biomes, Murderbot gets more and more frustrated and tired. You will thrill to hear Murderbot complain about the bus.
Wells’s mastery of world building is also on display as the characters move through the various zones of the torus, we get little glimpses of how life actually works, both in the torus and in Preservation Colony, where the characters are from, as they come up against obstacles like traffic due to a sporting event, and reports of other rogue secunits, not just our protagonist.
While it is a sequel to the previous books, Platform Decay is actually a great place to jump into the series. Returning characters have brief mentions to past events, but nothing that is critical to the plot that isn’t explained. Most of the characters are new, and charming, and the adventure is entirely self-contained in its short audio runtime.
If you are a fan of the Murderbot Diaries this is a must-listen, but if you are curious, this is also a great jumping on point. You can find Platform Decay in print, ebook, and audiobook, and I listened to the Audiobook through Hoopla, an app that works with local libraries to provide access to books, audiobooks, graphic novels, music, movies, and more. at no cost. Check to see if your local library participates!
Hugh J. O'Donnell 