Review: Fugitive Telemetry, by Martha Wells

[Russ Allbery]

Fugitive Telemetry
by Martha Wells

Series:    Murderbot Diaries #6
Publisher: Tordotcom
Copyright: April 2021
ISBN:      1-250-76538-2
Format:    Kindle
Pages:     167

Fugitive Telemetry is the fifth Murderbot novella. It is not a sequel
to the (as yet) lone novel, Network Effect. Instead, it takes place
between Exit Strategy and Network Effect, filling in more of the
backstory of the novel. You should not read it before Exit Strategy,
but I believe it and Network Effect could be read in any order.

A human has been murdered on Preservation Station. That is not a thing
that happens on Preservation Station, which is normally a peaceful
place whose crime is limited to intoxication-related stupidity.
Murderbot's first worry, and the first worry of his humans, is that
this may be one of their enemies getting into position to target them.
That risk at least makes the murder worth investigating, rather than
leaving it solely to Station Security.

The problem from Murderbot's perspective is that there is an effective
and efficient way of doing such an investigation, which starts with
hacking into the security systems to get necessary investigative data
and may end with the silent disposal of dead bodies of enemy agents.
But this is Preservation Station, not the Corporation Rim, and
Murderbot agreed to not do things like casually compromise all the
station security systems or murder people who are security threats.

  There was a big huge deal about it, and Security was all "but what
  if it take over the station's systems and kills everybody" and
  Pin-Lee told them "if it wanted to do that it would have done it by
  now," which in hindsight was probably not the best response.

Worse, Murderbot's human wants it to work collaboratively with Station
Security. That is a challenge, given that Security has a lot of reasons
not to trust SecUnits, and Murderbot has a lot of reasons not to trust
a security organization (not to mention considers them largely
incompetent). Also, the surveillance systems are totally inadequate
compared to the Corporation Rim for various financial and civil rights
reasons that are doubtless wonderful except in situations where someone
has been murdered. But hopefully the humans won't get in the way too
much.

This is one of those books (well, novellas) that I finished a while
back but then stalled out on reviewing. I think that's because I don't
have that much to say about it. Network Effect pushed the
world-building and Murderbot's personal storyline forward
significantly, but Fugitive Telemetry doesn't pick up those threads.
Instead, this is another novella in much the same vein as the first
four. If you, like me, are eager to see where Wells takes the story
after the events of the novel, this is somewhat disappointing. But if
you enjoyed the novellas, this is more of what you enjoyed: snarky
comments about humanity, competence porn, Murderbot getting pulled into
problems somewhat against its will and then trying to sort them out,
and the occasional touching moment of emotional connection that
Murderbot escapes from as quickly as possible.

It's quite enjoyable, helped considerably by Wells's wise choice to not
make the supporting human characters idiots. Collaboration is not
Murderbot's strength; it is certain the investigation will be an
endless series of frustrations and annoyances given the level of
suspicion Station Security starts with. But some humans (and some
SecUnits) are capable of re-evaluating their conclusions when given new
evidence, and watching that happen is part of the fun of this novella.

What this novella is missing is the overarching plot structure of the
rest of the series, since where this story sits chronologically doesn't
leave much room for advancing or even deepening the plot arc. It
therefore feels incidental: delightful while I was reading it, probably
missable if you have to, and not something I spent time thinking about
after I finished it.

If you liked the Murderbot novellas up until now, you will want to read
this one. If you haven't started the series yet, this is not a place to
start. If you want something more like the Network Effect novel, or a
story where Murderbot makes significant decisions about its future, the
wait continues.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Reviewed: 2021-07-31

URL: https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/1-250-76538-2.html

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)             <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>