Network Effect

Network Effect is the first full-length novel in Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries series. Its narrator is a security unit, a part-human, part-machine construct that has quietly hacked the module meant to control it and privately calls itself Murderbot. It would much rather be left alone to watch its favorite serials, but it has come to care, grudgingly, about the small group of human scientists it now protects. When a survey mission goes wrong and Murderbot and its humans are seized by a hostile ship, it has to work out who is behind the attack and why, which brings it back into contact with ART, a research transport whose personality is as strong as its own. The novel combines fast action with dry humor and a thoughtful look at friendship, autonomy and what it means to be a person. It is written for adult readers.