Science Fiction & Fantasy Award Winning Book Group discussion

This month we are finishing our Murderbot Challenge by reading Book 5 of the Murderbot Diaries - Network Effect by Martha Wells. Network Effect won the Hugo Award for Best Novel (2021), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2020), and Locus Award for Best SF Novel (2021) - high praise! I'm curious to see why this one is the first award winner, as I have really enjoyed the others.

Please join the discussion, and beware of spoilers (particularly if you haven't read the first 4 books!

I'm finding the short stories very good fun, looking forward to this one.

Just an FYI, the trailer just dropped for Murderbot on AppleTV+. Looks like I'm going to have to subscribe finally, lol.

I enjoyed this book, but I'm not sure if the Murderbot style benefited from expanding into novel length. I think part of the charm was that they were short, witty, fast, action-oriented.

I wasn’t sure how the longer format was going to feel. There were a couple of slow points, but I really enjoyed the longer, more in depth novel. Murderbot shows growth, but still remains somewhat clueless about humans. It is funny, sarcastic, complex. Really complex. Loved it.

I loved this book the first time I read it. Now that I've reread it a couple of times the flaws (like those slow spots) are a little more pronounced but I still love it. Murderbot complaining about adolescent humans is great.

I am on to the rest of the series. Love these.