Everyone’s favorite security unit Murderbot would much rather be watching new episodes of Lineages of the Sun, but is burdened, as usual, with clients who don’t trust their SecUnit’s situation assessment. And the situation in Network Effect, the first full-length novel in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, quickly becomes dire.

It’s hardly Murderbot’s fault that its human employers are captured in, shall we say, heightened circumstances, but, of course, it falls to Murderbot to save the day. Again. And then a third party from its past enters the picture, also in desperate need of help. Will Murderbot never get a break?