System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries, 7); Martha Wells

“System Collapse” probably would have been better if it was part of the novel “Network Effect”. There, I said it. The two stories are only vaguely separate, and the thing that Murderbot says it’ll do come the end of “Network Effect” doesn’t actually happen until the end of “System Collapse”. Which is kind of confusing I know, imagine how I felt reading this. The events of the latest novella follow right after the full-length book, like immediately after, which is why I am glad I re-read the novel before starting this latest novella because, otherwise, I’d have been lost throughout.

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As always, the shining star of this story is the relationship (ew) between Murderbot and ART, and how Murderbot navigates having emotions about humans (ew) some of which aren’t even its original humans! But as there are more and more humans now joining these short books, it gets harder and harder to know who is who, or even really care about ART’s people. That being said, I would still commit unspeakable acts for these robots, not that I’d have to, ART is still terrifying and would take care of that for me. But while I loved watching Murderbot deal with REDACTED (kind of, sort of. It’s thinking about it), not a lot of “new” stuff happens in this novella. Even the SecUnits that do a lot of heavy lifting in the synopsis didn’t play much of a role this time around, not like Three in “Network Effect” anyway, which should tell you all you need to know. But I do like that the Preservation humans have made it kind of their mission to adopt all SecUnits, only to come to see that they are all distinct, individual entities. There is no more Murderbot 2.0, not even in a full-fledged SecUnit, so to speak.

All in all, I still enjoyed this latest addition to the Murderbot Diaries, but I don’t think it was a true new story, more of like a very long Epilogue (that was very focused on emotional growth) to the previous novel. Which is why I’m giving it 4 stars and am crossing my fingers that the next BOOK (yes, I want another full-length novel), will actually have Murderbot and ART going off and doing the thing they said they would before “System Collapse”