Picking up where Network Effect left off, ART’s crew and Murderbot are attempting to rescue the humans not infected, but first they have to find them, and find them before Barish-Estranza turns them into slave labor.

But something is wrong with Murderbot. It’s not infected, but it’s not functioning at full capacity either. In fact sometimes it just shuts down in crippling fear or indecision, and even the humans are starting to notice.

This full-length novel is another stellar addition to the Murderbot series. Full of heart and exasperation, Murderbot continues to show us what it means to be human.

I adore the Murderbot Diaries, so when I got the chance to read System Collapse as an ARC I knew I had to read it immediately! This book did not disappoint, and Murderbot continues to be my favorite sci-fi series to date.

This was my first time reading a visual edition of the series instead of the audiobook, so that was definitely a bit of a learning curve for me! I think that no matter what format you go with you'll have a great time, but I do think I’ll go back and read the audiobook as well.

System Collapse does start off a bit slow, and there’s a piece of plot info that’s reveal is a bit underwhelming, but once we got to the second half it was action packed and full of great character moments. I love that Murderbot it expanding its group of humans, and I’m so excited to see where it and ART go next!

Thank you to TorDotCom Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts are my own!

I will share this review on Instagram 1-2 weeks before publication, and on Amazon on publication day.

I have been devouring the Murderbot books, and this one is absolutely no different! I just love Murderbot so much, and the snark of him interacting with ART and it’s humans?! It’s priceless! I loved the descriptions of the planet and the cavern system of the separatists colony. Also the little bit of action that we saw was really great!

It also seems like there might be even more for Murderbot in the future, and I absolutely hope so!! A five star read and something I will continue to highly recommend to patrons.

Typical Murderbot. Concern for his humans being his first concern. Lots of problems keeping them safe and alive. Great addition to series.

Murderbot continues to be their snarky, fabulous self. If you've enjoyed the prior books of the series, you'll enjoy this one as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

I was primed to adore this installment of Murderbot, which picks up immediately where Network Effect (book 5, the full-length novel) leaves off. While the action is slow to start and Murderbot is enmeshed in internal turmoil, once the activity starts, it doesn't let us. Fans of the ensemble cast in previous books will be satisfied by their reappearance, and ART is a star player. Highly satisfying!

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 ;)