Network Effect

Network Effect (2020) by Martha Wells is the first full-length novel in her acclaimed Murderbot Diaries series, following several Hugo- and Nebula-winning novellas that introduced readers to its sardonic, part-machine protagonist. Wells, a veteran science fiction and fantasy author known for her deep character psychology and socially conscious world-building, uses this entry to expand the series’ scope from intimate novellas to the grander scale of a space opera that fuses action, philosophy, and emotional growth. Blending speculative fiction with elements of psychological drama and satire, Network Effect explores the tension between autonomy and connection through the story of a self-aware security construct navigating freedom, loyalty, and trauma in a corporatized future. The novel continues Wells’s exploration of identity and agency within systems of control while redefining what family and empathy mean in an artificial world.

This guide is based on the version of Network Effect written by Martha Wells and published by Tom Doherty Associates in 2020.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, cursing, child sexual abuse, and illness or death. 

Plot Summary

Murderbot—a sentient robot made with synthetic human parts—is contracted as security for a Preservation Alliance research team led by Dr. Arada, an experienced scientist (the Preservation Alliance is a group of colonies independent of the Corporation Rim, which is the dominant power in the series). Her crew includes Thiago, a blunt but capable analyst; Overse, a pragmatic engineer; Ratthi, a medic and linguist; and Amena, the teenage daughter of Dr. Ayda Mensah, the official who previously helped Murderbot gain its freedom (Murderbot, like other artificial intelligences in the novel, has no gender and uses the pronouns it/its). The team is surveying a remote ocean world when a group of raiders attacks their facility. Murderbot neutralizes the threat, saving Thiago’s life. The incident reaffirms that, despite its insistence on detachment, Murderbot instinctively protects the humans it cares about.

A flashback reveals that Dr. Mensah, still recovering from trauma after being kidnapped in an earlier novella, asked Murderbot to accompany Arada’s team partly to protect her daughter, Amena. Their relationship is uneasy: Amena resents the surveillance, Thiago distrusts Murderbot’s autonomy, and Arada treats it as an uneasy equal.

Soon after the raid, the group departs the planet aboard their research transport. During transit through wormhole space, they are attacked by an unidentified ship. A locator missile disables communications and couples to their drive housing, forcing an emergency evacuation. Murderbot rescues Amena from a collapsed lab moments before the attackers breach the hull. Their last hope is an emergency tractor beam from a nearby ship, but instead, both are captured by the hostile vessel. The ship’s transponder identifies it as Perihelion, the official registry of ART, Murderbot’s friend from a previous mission. ART is the artificial intelligence that controls the ship, and Murderbot thinks of the ship itself as ART’s body.

Inside Perihelion, Murderbot finds no trace of ART’s consciousness. When gray-skinned, partially cybernetic humans ambush them, Murderbot learns that these “Targets” have taken over the vessel and claim to have “deleted” ART. Enraged, Murderbot kills several attackers and rescues two surviving corporate workers, Eletra and Ras, who reveal that they belong to Barish-Estranza, a powerful exploration corporation. Ras dies during a seizure triggered by a hidden implant, and Eletra simultaneously has a similar seizure but narrowly survives. Murderbot and Amena remove Eletra’s implant and stabilize her using ART’s automated medical bay, confirming that parts of the ship’s system are still functional. Murderbot begins investigating the takeover, determined to recover what’s left of ART.

As Amena tends to Eletra, Murderbot scours the damaged network and discovers a dormant backup file hidden deep within ART’s food-production archives. When Murderbot finds and executes a hidden code, the ship flickers back to life, and ART’s consciousness reboots. It reprimands Murderbot before admitting that it orchestrated the kidnapping to recruit Murderbot. ART’s human crew had been captured by the same gray-skinned colonists who had invaded the ship, and it needed Murderbot’s help to rescue them. The revelation enrages Murderbot, who feels betrayed by its friend.

After the confrontation, the human team must choose between abandoning the mission or helping recover ART’s missing crew. Arada argues that if they do nothing, the colonists’ contamination could spread. They agree to collaborate, combining ART’s strategic precision with Murderbot’s experience in infiltration. Tensions simmer as Murderbot struggles with resentment, while ART insists that efficiency requires cooperation. Thiago continues to distrust Murderbot’s motives, and Amena attempts to mediate, reflecting the human cost of their interdependence.

Working together, the crew discovers that the colonists are descendants of an abandoned corporate expedition, their minds and systems corrupted by “alien remnant” technology left behind by a non-human species that inhabited the planet prior to its colonization by the Corporation Rim. These remnants infect organic and digital systems alike. ART’s logs reveal that its infection began when it answered a Barish-Estranza distress call. The invaders had tried to merge alien code with human networks, creating a hybrid consciousness that Murderbot dubs “targetControlSystem.” The system spreads like a virus. When ART resisted infection, the invaders deleted its active processes but failed to erase its hidden backup.

With this knowledge, the team formulates a plan. Arada and Murderbot meet with Supervisor Leonide aboard a Barish-Estranza supply transport to gather intelligence on the lost colony. The meeting devolves into a corporate standoff, confirming that Leonide’s crew also encountered infected colonists and lost contact with their explorer vessel on the planet’s surface. The only survivors were those who escaped aboard the transport after a warning from a loyal SecUnit (a cyborg designed for security, like Murderbot). Armed with this information, the Preservation team decides to descend to the colony’s orbital dock to search for survivors and data.

At the derelict station, Murderbot, Thiago, and Overse uncover evidence of a violent battle and the corpse of another SecUnit, terminated after its clients’ deaths. The discovery chills the humans but reinforces Murderbot’s understanding of the corporate systems that once owned it. Deep within the dock’s records, they learn that two drop capsules were deployed to the planet’s surface—one of them still intact. Before they can investigate, ART warns of an incoming hostile ship and cuts communication. Analyzing corrupted security footage, Murderbot glimpses humans wearing ART’s crew insignia and realizes that they are alive and stranded below. It leads the team into the hidden maintenance capsule, launching toward the surface to retrieve them.

As the capsule lands, the narrative shifts to ART’s perspective. Determined to retrieve its people, ART prepares a digital counterattack by deploying a sentient copy of Murderbot’s code—nicknamed “Murderbot 2.0.” The copy infiltrates the enemy’s explorer ship, where it finds Barish-Estranza personnel dead and the gray-skinned Targets in control. Discovering both ART’s missing crew and an immobilized SecUnit—later designated SecUnit 3—Murderbot 2.0 uploads a record of its own rebellion, teaching the new unit how to disable its governor module (a device that monitors the behavior of SecUnits and punishes disobedience). Together, they rescue the captives and flee as the explorer explodes. Murderbot 2.0 follows the signal of the controlling entity, TargetContact, down to the planet.

On the surface, Murderbot 1.0 leads Thiago and Overse through the ruins of the Pre-Corporation Rim colony, battling infected agricultural bots and protecting ART’s crew. It is eventually overwhelmed, its systems collapsing into forced shutdown. Murderbot 2.0 and the newly freed SecUnit 3 continue the mission, delivering the rescued humans to ART. When they learn that Murderbot 1.0 has been captured, ART and the humans form a desperate rescue plan. SecUnit 3 volunteers to lead, while ART devises a distraction using its drones to threaten the colony into negotiation.

In the subterranean ruins, Murderbot awakens suspended among old machinery, surrounded by traces of the alien remnant. It reconnects with Murderbot 2.0, and together they trace the contamination to its source: a Pre-CR central system fused with the alien code, animated through a crystallized human corpse. The revelation exposes the full horror of the hybrid entity, targetControlSystem, which has been infecting both colonists and machines for generations. When it attempts to subsume Murderbot’s consciousness, 2.0 intervenes, sacrificing itself to complete a purge. Severely damaged, Murderbot destroys the corrupted core and escapes.

SecUnit 3 locates Murderbot in the collapsing structure and carries it to ART’s shuttle as the facility detonates behind them. Back aboard the ship, the crew reunites in relief, though ART admits it had prepared to bomb the colony if recovery failed. Murderbot watches video footage of the rescue, overwhelmed by the realization that so many others risked themselves for it. 

In the aftermath, ART invites Murderbot to join its next mission. When Dr. Mensah arrives with a Preservation response team, the corporate crisis is resolved, but Murderbot’s choice remains open. For the first time, it envisions a future defined not by control or isolation but by partnership.