Murderbot!!!! And my birthday present finally arrived! A good week!

Martha Wells' Murderbot novel, Network Effect, came out on Tuesday, and yay for the pandemic because I hardly had anything I needed to drop so I I could spend all day reading it! Also a good thing I was all by myself, because I was laughing out loud and crying (sometimes with laughter, sometimes not) and yelling at the characters, and having the most fun I've had all pandemic.

I may have mentioned one or two times how much I love Murderbot. The novel is everything I wanted it to be and more. We get Dr. Mensah's brother-in-law, who doesn't trust Murderbot and definitely doesn't like it, and Dr. Mensah's teen-aged daughter, who is miffed at Murderbot but also trusts it implicitly,  and ART, who—gah—can't say anything about ART! And new scary villains and weird scenarios that only Martha Wells could think up that require Murderbot to care about things. A lot. Also, some of the really terrible bad things that have happened to Murderbot may have caused some lingering trauma that might possibly be affecting its performance reliability.

I liked this quotation and Rachel Neumeier's comments about it: kind of sums it up, really! But amidst all the violence and mayhem there are the awesome character moments that punch you in the gut, and always Murderbot's sarcastic, defensive, sulky, exasperated, painfully human, wise voice.

You know that thing humans do where they think they're being completely logical and they absolutely are not being logical at all, and on some level they know that, but can't stop? Apparently it can happen to SecUnits, too.

I've told you this before: go read the Murderbot Diaries. Start with the novellas so that you'll be able to fully appreciate the novel. Trust me, you need this in your life right now!

(According to Goodreads there is a short story told from Dr. Mensah's point of view, but I can't find it anywhere! Anyone know where I can get my hands on it??)

Then on Friday, the book I had ordered for my birthday back in March finally arrived. It's the new Folio Society illustrated Howl's Moving Castle. Look how beautiful it is!