I’m not sure you’d want to read this 7th book in the series without having read the previous installments, but then, why would you want to *miss* the previous books?
The protagonist, who is part robot with organic parts, calls itself Murderbot, because of an incident now somewhat far in its past for which it wasn’t guilty, but the appellation stuck. In any event, Murderbot is a security robot, or SecUnit, designed to protect its human clients from any threats. But Murderbot went “rogue,” having hacked its controlling module, so that it now has free will. Murderbot would like nothing better than to spend its time watching all the space adventure series it has downloaded, but still can’t resist the pull to rescue humans from all the scrapes they continually get themselves into.
In this installment, Murderbot is still with his gang of humans led by Dr. Mensah of the University of Mihira and New Tideland. They are on a planet whose colonists had been subject to alien contamination. The University was trying to protect colonists from being captured by evil corporations such as Barish-Estranza (B-E) and dumped into labor camps for corporate contract labor for the rest of their lives. Part of their mission is convincing the colonists that B-E was a bad actor and the University had their welfare as a priority.
As the crew from the University talk to the colonists, they learn there is a separatist group of colonists elsewhere on the planet. That group also might need to be evacuated (if they weren’t dead), especially as B-E had gotten wind of both groups and had arrived also.
Murderbot is again working with ART, an acronym made up by Murderbot that stands for Asshole Research Transport. ART, called Peri by its humans, is the bot pilot of Perihelion, a wormhole-capable space research and teaching vessel. It is part of the University’s anti-corporate team that gathers information and strikes out against corporations. ART is very advanced, although not as tuned into human emotions as Murderbot (who is addicted to human media and watches it constantly), and the two have developed a love-hate relationship.
Murderbot, ART, and ART’s humans had been in struggles before against alien contamination and B-E, and all had sustained some damage. Murderbot still suffered from something equivalent to PTSD. Moreover, Murderbot wrestled with a compulsion to help other SecUnits, even those with B-E, to deprogram themselves from their controller software and become free agents.
There is non-stop violence, action, and adventure, all filtered through Murderbot’s dry sense of humor, sardonic wit, and constant existential angst. (ART’s personality is similar albeit without the angst.)
Evaluation: Murderbot has no gender, but I mostly (but not always) think of it as a “he”; perhaps that is just a reflection of my personal bias and/or need to assign gender. No one in the books has that same problem. The characters are of all races and genders and don’t tend to categorize any others, whether human or not.
The humans in Murderbot’s life can’t help but love and appreciate this very odd SecUnit. Moreover, the desire to make sacrifices to save the other becomes mutual. The episodes are endearing, very humorous, and diverting in the extreme.
Note: There is a good Murderbot Wiki, here.
Published by Tordotcom, 2023
Rhapsody in Books Weblog 
When I started reading the books, I thought of Murderbot as “she” but it is so adamant about calling itself it I soon got over that.
I found this most recent one less of a page-turner than the previous novellas. I’m trying to figure out why; it may be mostly that it’s so dependent on remembering details from the last one.
Interesting that you went with “she”! Totally agree about it being less of a page-turner. Not as much action and less funny, I think. But also the dependency on familiarity with the previous books.