Martha Wells, Martha Wells: System Collapse (Hardcover, 2023, Tordotcom)
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published Nov. 13, 2023 by Tordotcom.
Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!
Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.
Not quite as good as Network Effect, perhaps because ART is less involved this time. The first couple of chapters also confused me a bit -- I felt like I'd been dropped into the middle of a book and had missed the build-up -- but once I got past that it was a ton of fun.
Murderbot just has near infinite potential as a character. It's multiprocessing nature makes the stories complex but so rich, I feel like starting the whole series again now to pick up the bits I missed.
I continue to love the Murderbot series. By this point, the action parts have lost impact because there's too much precedent for how they're going to turn out, so I think it's wise of Wells to play that part down a bit in this book, in favour of a story more about persuasion and trust building. And the ongoing saga of Murderbot learning about both its limits and capabilities continues to be one of the most relatable arcs in SF/F.
Oh my [REDACTED] god, it was just too short.
