ARC Review: Murderbot Diaries #8

Platform Decay by Martha Wells

Publication Date: May 5, 2026

Summary from Netgalley:

Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment of Martha Wells’ bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series.

Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.

After volunteering to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realizes that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn’t know.

Including human children. Ugh.

This may well call for… eye contact!

(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)

ARC provided by Tor Publishing Group via Netgalley for an honest review.

Confession:

I really enjoy reading the Murderbot diaries, and this one is a fine addition to the series. The story is witty, fast and most importantly funny. I love living in SecUnit’s head and listening to his comments about humans and the situations they find themselves in. There is also a lot of action in this one, as well as a few sort of sweet moments between Secunit and the group of humans it is trying to save.

Secunit is becoming more self aware, especially with his mental health module always checking in. I loved those little side comments about its feelings. But Secunit’s existential grumbling has not changed at all, maybe the topics have, but I still love the curmudgeonly attitude. SecUnit is also becoming more aware that killing everyone is not always the best answer to an issue, which was kind of cool to watch.

There is quite a bit of action but there is also quite a bit of down time, which bogged the pacing down just a tad. There is a lot of traveling across the planet encompassing space station, and with that there are some interesting descriptions of the areas they pass through. It might have been nice to see a bit more interaction between Secunit and the people he was escorting, I didn’t feel like it connected with them as much as in previous books.

This is a good addition to the series. It is a side quest and didn’t add much to the overall plot of the series, but it is always fun to spend time with Murderbot and its humans. I highly recommend this if you are a fan of the series. If you haven’t yet read any of the books, you might want to go back and start at the beginning. This could be an ok stand alone book, but I wouldn’t recommend starting here.