Ah, I'm really conflicted about this series now. The plot is fine and I like the continued development of the character, but this story jumps back in time and picks up after the book 5. It seems more and more that there isn't a plan for this series that the author and publishing team are making it up as they go along, stuff'll keep rolling out as long as someone will spend money on it.

3.5 stars for the book itself, 2 stars for how it fits (doesn't fit) in a series that's starting to jump all over the place.

eARC from NetGalley.

I just can’t get enough of Murderbot. I really hope this series continues for a long, long time. It’s so easy to identify with Murderbot’s journey of learning how to interact with humans; it’s like an introvert learning how to get along in a world of extroverts. I’m along for their ride and would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes science fiction.

How. How does Martha Wells manage to keep making these books better, it is actually incredible.
If you like this series, walk don't run and preorder this one. If you haven't read any of Murderbot books before, I beg you read them, they are the very best Sci-Fi writing out there at the moment!

Martha Wells does it again with an intriguing an entertaining update of Murderbot's story. Recovering from trauma, Murderbot is with its humans, just trying to do an honest day's work. Enter corporate soul-suckers, the ethics of withholding free will, ART (ish), and the entertainment feed. As ever, Wells does a lovely job of entertaining while asking all the right sci-fi questions about the human (and construct) condition. One can only hope the audio book is narrated by the same performer when it arrives.

It’s essential that these books be read in order. Don’t miss the novel preceding System Collapse or going in you will be wondering what is happening. This is another solid story that finds our favorite killing machine suffering the fallout of caring too much and not completely sure what to do about it. After trauma, humans react in predictable ways and can benefit greatly from emotional support. But what about Murderbot? How does it cope with the messy truth that fear and pain are horrible and leave scars? Like you’d expect. In other words, not well. But we get more insight into what it wants for its future and how it wants to live. Although this story rockets forward with nonstop action and leaves little time for the characters to reflect on anything other than surviving the next five minutes, it still delivers.

Recommend book which is well writtten and enoyable. A fan favourite for sure and a great addition to your Wells library.

A new installation in Martha Wells’ Murderbot series is cause for celebration, and System Collapse was no exception. Even though this doesn’t release until November, I dropped the other books I was reading because I was need of a fun comfort read.

System Collapse included the series’ signature action-packed plot, SecUnit sarcasm, and snarky but endearing cast of teammates / begrudging friends. System Collapse began a bit slowly, but ended up being one of my favorite books in the series because of its focus on character development. For all that Murderbot is socially awkward and finds most of his team bewildering, he is also part human; much of this book centers on Murderbot grappling with his human side – to Murderbot, a source of vulnerability, but also perhaps an unexpected asset?

If you’ve already read the first six books in the Murderbot Diaries, then I can’t imagine I need to convince you to pick up System Collapse. And if you haven’t tried the first book in the series, know that the last time I recommended it, I was walking down the street, and a stranger overheard me and yelled out that they loved Murderbot too!

Huge thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy!

Fun fact: this is not a novella like the earlier Murderbot books, so if you’re wondering how Wells is going to wrap everything up, there’s at least another 50 pages. As always a great installment and I still love Murderbot. It might help to refresh yourself on what happened in the previous book. I had to go read a summary because it’s been awhile and this is a continuation of some of those plot lines.

This series keeps getting better and better (and it was amazing to begin with).
Excellent plotting, well-paced and full of action and twists. I love the world building of the Corporation Rim, and the expansion of the particular history of planet we’re on for this book.
Most of all, though, I love murderbot. This whole series has been such a unique and engaging exploration of self-identity, interpersonal relationships and personal growth. System Collapse extends that exploration as MurderBot deals with (or doesn’t deal with) trauma in its unique way.

This was not my favourite Murderbot book. However, even my non-favourite Murderbot books are still very good books, and I will probably reread this two or three times before its official release later this year.

My biggest problem with this was that it felt insubstantial as a novel; it was only 60% of the length of Network Effect, and it was set in roughly the same place with a lot of the same characters, so it didn't feel like it was treading new ground. If the first four novellas were a single character arc for Murderbot, then Fugitive Telemetry through this one are a second one; this is good from a character-building point of view, and it probably was what was needed to make sense of some of the emotional arcs, but it meant that this book was less explosively new and exciting.

Fundamentally, this book has the issue of how to make the outcome uncertain and thus the plot interesting, given that we've seen Murderbot kick ass in a similar set of circumstances to this one in the previous book. Wells solves this by introducing internal complications for Murderbot, who has to deal with the redacted. This works, and I think it will be really good for future emotional arcs, but it is just slightly less fun to read about. I missed the homicidal sarcasm, which was somewhat hampered by redacted.

I highlight my quibbles because they feel a little notable in comparison to Network Effect, which I think was probably the strongest entry in the series since the first. Fundamentally, this is a series that I love, and I think that the bar has been set incredibly high. There are some great structural flourishes here, including the use of redacted, and I'm impressed by the ways that it doesn't feel stale or repetitive. This doesn't quite meet the dizzying heights of its chronological predecessor for some structural reasons that I don't think could have been avoided without telling an entirely different story, but I still loved to read it and tore through it from the second I got access to it until it was done.

I'm enamored with this entire series, and this installment was no expection. Murderbot remains one of the most underrated series and relatable characters I've encountered. How does one relate so strongly to a nonbinary construct, self-named "Murderbot," who cares so much and little, and also doesn't understand emotion? Beats me, but Martha Wells has that secret sauce.

My only hangups at this point, I didn't fully grasp the implications of the "redacted" moment, though it was very in character to feel so embarrassed about something that it pointedly avoids it so hard it actively redacts the information until we can't continue without it. I also found the climactic solution moment of making a movie together to convince the colonists a little over-the-top corny. Yes, media and entertainment has power outside of staving off boredom, but since Murderbot's entire existence seems to add that undercurrent to the story as it is, making it the main point was a bit cheesy.

Even so I was thrilled to be back with ART and Ratthi on the contaminated planet! I was itching to know what happened and feel so satiated to find out. 4.75/5

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Murderbot and her crew continue to explore a world affected by alien contamination - racing against a corporation to contact a group long separated from the rest.
Review
I’ve said repeatedly that Tor and Wells erred in making this a serial, episodic novel rather than a standard big book or series of novels. It’s uneven, with occasional stronger, longer pieces bolstering shorter, more muddled episodes. The main story is hard to keep track of; I read the last iteration just two years ago, and struggled for most of this book to join the pieces up. And because Murderbot, while engaging, does similar things each time and has pretty much the same sardonic attitude throughout, it’s hard to tell the episodes apart.
Here, Wells, lays down some markers for Murderbot’s character development, but presents them in such a muddled form – first redacted, then, halfway through the book, spelled out explicitly – that it’s hard to do much with them. They are also, clearly, just markers – promises that, we’ll see Murderbot evolve; but not now. Maybe next time.
In a series of peaks and valleys, I’m afraid this is one of the valleys. At this rate, I fear I could see the Murderbot Diaries go on and on and on – the same basic plot and tone repeated in every episode. Wells is a very talented writer, and Murderbot is a great character, but this episodic approach is not serving either of them well.
Whether you’re new to Murderbot or a fan, I strongly recommend reading at least a couple of these books at a time – as if they were a larger book. I think you’ll get much more out of the story that way than in these brief installments.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Murderbot never fails to impress, and System Collapse is no different.

I was surprised to see that this book directly followed Network Effect, and the journey it takes Murderbot on is equally as surprising as it is refreshing. It feels like a new angle of the character, it maintains that classic flat tone that the narrative has always had while also weaving in changes to the character and what it has been through. I think my favourite aspect of reading a Murderbot book is picking apart the way it thinks and feels, what it chooses to show the reader through the narrative, and after everything that its been through in the previous novel, Murderbot has a LOT of complex emotions to figure out.

The idea of giving a robot PTSD is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking. You can't help but root for Murderbot throughout this series, but this book in particular really digs into the humanity of androids, and seeing it grow as it learns to process its trauma and emotions (that it likes to pretend it doesn't experience) was excellent.

And god, I love ART. I love watching Murderbot pretend it hates ART. There's not many character dynamics that can compete with this hostile, aggressive form of friendship that these two have created. It's absolutely a highlight of this book.

I don't think I'll ever get enough of Murderbot, and the way this book molds and shapes the character into something new makes it probably the most unique of the entire series.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

Another brilliant step in the adventures of Murderbot and ART - & frankly, they can keep coming indefinitely.

𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Dust and Murderbots
𝗙𝗮𝘃 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿: Murderbot
𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Easy
𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲: Novella
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: Sci-fi, Adventure
4.7/𝟱

𝗢𝗨𝗧: Nov 14th, 2023

🌱THE EXCELLENT
~ Continuing story
~ Evolution of characters & their relationships
~ Dynamic world + AI
~ Great descriptions of direction & space

We’re still on the planet we were last time, with lost colonists & deranged alien mind controlled colonists being decontaminated - but now, they had to decide if they would leave the planet that had brought strife, division and death, if they would stay, OR if they would unknowingly join slave labour camps by B. E…

🦖 There is just something about Murderbot that is ridiculously relatable & adorable at the same time, it’s pretty hard to describe if you haven’t read any of the books. The grudging growth of love for some people & beings, reminds me of how I feel sometimes.

✨𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

🌱THE MEH
~ The waiting for the next book always pains me!

♡🌱 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 ;)

Stars: 4 out of 5.

Disclaimer before I get into the meat of this review. In order to understand what's happening in this book, you must have read Network Effect. This story picks up almost immediately after the ending of that book, and the events in NE have a direct impact on what's happening in this story. Of course, I'm assuming that not many people would start a series on its seventh book without reading the previous six, but you never know.

As I said, the events of this book are a direct continuation of Network Effect. They are still on the planet with the alien infestation. The corporation is still there as well. And Murderbot... Murderbot is not okay. Oh, he is fine physically speaking, but his mental state is in shambles to say the least.

And you know what? I'm really glad that the author chose to portray it this way. She could have easily just swept the events of Network Effect under the rug, and left Murderbot continue like nothing happened. To be his sarcastic and highly efficient paranoid self. But that would have diminished the impact of what had happened in those ruins. 

Murderbot had been through a horrific and traumatic experience. He was almost assimilated by a malignant alien entity, not to mention the mental violation that took place. If he had just shrugged this off, it would only have reinforced the point that SecUnits are just machines, because only a machine could walk away unscathed from something like that. 

But Bot is more than a machine, and he has a severe case of PTSD, even if he doesn't understand what's happening to him. He thinks he is broken, that something in either his organic parts or his programs is malfunctioning. So we get this very hesitant Bot, who second guesses all of his hunches and reactions, who doesn't trust his own risk assessments, and who spends so much time checking and double-checking his conclusions that he seems slow on the uptake. This shows us an oddly vulnerable side of Murderbot. He isn't used to being this hesitant. He isn't used to not being in control of the situation or of his own reactions to those situations, and he isn't used to not being able to have several plans of attack/retreat going at once in his head.

I also loved that Bot's attitude towards the humans he is with (the ones who came with him and ART's crew) has drastically changed in this book as well. Yes, he can still be sarcastic about them, but he truly considers them as friends, not just charges he has to keep alive often despite their best efforts. Bot even starts to trust them to accomplish things without his input or help. He relies on them more and he thinks of them a lot more fondly then before. This is huge character growth for Bot, and I am very happy about that.

My only complaint is that due to the limiting factors of the setting, we don't get nearly enough interaction with ART prime or Three, which I was really looking forward to. But seeing how this book ends, I have hope that we will get a lot more ART in the future. I would also like to know what will happen to the SecUnits Bot freed in this book. It would really be interesting to see how each of them evolves.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Yet another stellar outing for Murderbot and its ever growing crew of humans it wants to protect. I was so happy to be back with my favorite conflicted construct and there wasn't a disappointing moment in the entire work.

System Collapse picks up immediately after the events of Network Effect so if you feel too excited to wait for your copy go ahead and give it a re-read- who isn't up for another re-read of a Murderbot book? As with all Murderbot books, Martha Wells hits the ground running and we don't stop for a breath so be sure you remember the events of the novel before diving in.

I can't describe literally anything that happens and still have a spoiler free review since the reader is literally thrown into the whirlwind immediately and then it's all fun, games, snark, violence, and Sanctuary Moon until the very last page. Every character, even some of the ones we've just met, absolutely show up for the action and it's as much fun to get to know them as it was to meet Mensah and the Preservation Crew for the first time.

A wild, unpredictable romp through an imaginative and detailed setting that will have you finishing the whole thing in a single sitting then flipping it over to start again.

My entire NetGalley account was a ploy to get this book so I suppose I owe it a review that is at least semi coherent! So let’s ride!!

Why I Love Murderbot: Or, The Freedom In A Story That Doesn't Give Two Flips: An Unhinged History

-all other snarky protagonists WISH they were Murderbot

You know the ones. Sometimes they are great. Sometimes they are grating. Sardonic, exhausted, smarter than everyone else in the room. Here's how Murderbot shines: it's not just the dialogue, which is phenomenal, it's the entire book. These are the Murderbot Diaries - the whole setup is meant to be Murderbot's direct POV. So you get gems like

I went down the stupid tunnel towards the stupid danger.

It wasn’t dead, it was just catastrophically damaged. (I know, who isn’t?)

"Good job, SecUnit."
Ratthi sent me a glyph of a Preservation party sparkler exploding. I didn’t say anything. (I know I get pissed off when humans don’t acknowledge my work, but why is too much acknowledgment also upsetting? Sentience sucks.)
On our private feed connection, Ratthi said, How are you doing back there?
I am absolutely fine, I told him.


7.75 books later, Martha Wells has only ever committed to the bit.

-are we human, or are we dancer? constructs carrying the burden of sentience?

I love (L O V E) “AI has a soul” literature and this is probably the most interesting version of it. Because here’s Murderbot’s situation: it is an AI construct, yes, but it also has organic parts (including neural tissue). So as it learns to wrestle with things like empathy and compassion and anxiety and depression and trauma, it’s also trying to parse out whether those things are only developing because of the organic material, or whether they are innate.

These questions are made better by the constant inclusion of ART, an unhinged, fully-AI ship mind, who is unbelievably hysterical and shares some of the squishiest moments with Murderbot (mostly around not knowing how to help it besides offering to watch tv with it). ART also cares so, so deeply for its humans from the first moment it arrives on scene, a fact Murderbot struggles with as it tries to figure out if it wants to care at all.

I also love that Murderbot’s end game is not to be human (with some undertones of, to be human is inherently to be governed, which it’s frankly not interested in). Instead, it just wants to be.
This isn’t really a spoiler, but one of my favorite interactions earlier in the series essentially boils down to:

Human crew member: do you want rights?

Murderbot: not really

Human crew member: what do you want?

Murderbot:

Murderbot: cash money


-a catch-all of other things

Super fun world building. A constant rail against capitalism. The varying lengths of the works (from short story to full length novella) give the different stories fun flavors, since they can accomplish different things. All of the stories are about the cones. Murderbot interacting with children is always gold tier. Murderbot interacting with ART is diamond tier.

7.75 books later, I love that Murderbot is still a complete mess (I know, who isn’t?) but it’s still trying. Thank you NetGalley & Macmillan for gifting me the greatest of all treasures. Please write these books forever, Martha Wells!!

This was the Murderbot book that I had the most trouble getting into, because it felt like I was missing large swaths of context -- at this point, the cast is so big that without a primer it's hard to remember who was whom from the previous book. That said, once I got into it, I enjoyed it as always.

Good, as all Murderbot books are, but - for me - not as good as the previous volumes. (Still a 4 star read, so make of that what you will!) Martha Wells is a joy to read.

Murderbot always delivers without fail. Martha Wells gives us yet another adventure with our favorite chronically sardonic SecUnit, with an entire planet and its people at stake, taking place where Network Effect left off.