The beginning of this brought a lot more suspense than usual. The actions from Network Effect had a deep impact on Murderbot’s psyche - something they are not willing to admit, no matter how much it is hurting their functionality.

Threat assessments spike, performance reliability drops, and we are introduced to a whole new, completely nervous side of Murderbot. We see moments of them freezing, second guessing their abilities, and missing things that shouldn’t have been missed. The crew sees it, too.

These emotions being uncovered is definitely a turning point for the series, but I couldn’t help but feel like the plot was monotonous. They find danger, they fight, Murderbot says some sass, ART say some sass back, they escape. I love all of that, but it didn’t feel as exciting as it did in previous books.

This latest installment of the Murderbot diaries ultimately fell a bit flat for me, which is honestly disappointing. I have loved the other novellas and novel that make up this series, so I was very eager to get to this one. In the end, it took me almost halfway through the book to really get into the story and by that point I was a bit frustrated.

First, the good. I enjoyed the return to Murderbot's distinctive narration style. It was a lot of fun to return to that voice, as well as some characters I enjoyed from previous installments (it's hard to imagine a Murderbot book with ART at this point). I like the emotional journey that Murderbot has gone on from one installment to the next and that is especially clear in this latest book.

One of the hardest parts of the book, for me, was the fact that it picks up almost immediately after Network Effect. I read that installment over a year ago and details of the plot were murky in my memory; a re-read would have been incredibly helpful here. I felt dropped into the plot and left to flounder a bit more than I normally would, even in the context of a sequel.

In the first half of the book, there is something that Murderbot is keeping from the official record, occasionally signaled as "redacted" in the middle of the text. We eventually learn what the "redacted" incident is, and after that, the book really picked up steam for me. The trope of hiding this from the reader in such an obvious way was distracting to say the least and a bit frustrating. I think we could have come to the reveal a bit sooner and moved on with the plot for the same effect as waiting until later in the book. Once we got past it, I really enjoyed the conclusion of the book.

Overall, not my favorite Murderbot installment. I wonder if the series, at 7 books now, has overstayed its welcome. That said, I will definitely read another one before completely giving up on it!

Murderbot does it again.

This series is one of my all time favorites and I can never put it down.

I will say I ended up listening to it and was a little confused by an aspect of the story. It made you feel like you were missing an event. And you were. It does get explained so if you’re confused and feel like you missed a whole book, keep going!

This was another great installment in the Murderbot Diaries. I enjoyed watching the characters work together to protect the colonists. I also thought it was interesting that SecUnit had to deal with a malfunctioning of a sort. I enjoyed SecUnits classic inner monologue and continuing to see the unlikely friendships unfold. This is just a feel good series! I liked some of the other books in the series better, but I still really enjoyed this one.

5*

Martha Wells can do no wrong when it comes to Murderbot.

I loved this character from it's conception and the continued growth of the character, the world, and the politics. Wells drops us quite literally into the middle of action and REDACTED mystery.

I was gripped from the get-go, but as many others have mentioned, it's worth perhaps reading Network Effect before you dive into this one as it picks up immediately after.

This was the first Murderbot book I really struggled to get into, for a fairly simple reason: Not enough Murderbot. I mean, Murderbot narrates the story and is its central figure as usual. But unlike with a few of the recent stories, there's nothing new to discover about their perspective, no sense that the character is moving forward or developing. They have one personal problem, initially presented as "redacted" often enough that I gave up guessing, and that didn't turn out to be all that engaging once it was finally revealed — just something for the character to fret over in a repetitive way without leading to a significant resolution. And the rest of the story around them didn't hold together for me at all.

The plot this time out, about a planet with several fractious colonist groups that don't trust outsiders, keeps shifting focus. As soon as the parameters are clear, the story moves away from the existing colonist groups and toward a brand new one. None of these colonists ever surfaces as a meaningful character; the whole book pivots on whether they're going to be saved or enslaved, but they're just a big bland abstract.

When System Collapse does spend a little time with one of the corpers and her situation, it becomes a lot more engaging. But there isn't nearly enough of her, and she only barely gets to do anything meaningful. The vast majority of this book is people being comparatively helpless in situations they can't take meaningful actions to address, and Murderbot getting stuck in situations where their actions are meaningful, but where they had no input into the parameters that led to the situation in the first place. That kind of thing can be a thrill if it's the point of the story, but in this one case, it left the whole book feeling fairly hollow to me, just a series of empty dialogues where little gets decided, action sequences where almost everyone is frustrated and confused, and not enough actual personalities or individual story arcs to hang onto to give the whole thing personal and engaging stakes. Odd, because I normally find these books a lot of fun.

All that said, it really feels like this book is the latest careful step in a long-term narrative where Murderbot's love of media transitions into Murderbot making their own media, specifically to communicate the value of autonomy to other SecUnits and/or to share their own experience with autonomy with humans. If that's what all this is aiming toward, I can't wait.

System Collapse by Martha Wells is the lastest entry in the Murderbot series. The story was enjoyable, even though it was not as action-packed as some the the previous titles. New characters were introduced and we gained further insight into the workings of Murderbot. Highly recommended.

Another entry in the long running Murderbot series, System Collapse, is a welcome return with everyone’s favorite neurotic robot. I love the comedy in this series and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of these adventures. I prefer the novellas over the novel for this series.

Murderbot does it again. It has major feelings and major *redacted*. I loved the pace, what we uncovered, what the characters did and what they didn't. But above all I loved Murderbot as usual because there's no other character more relatable.
At the start of the book we are thrown right into the action and we don't know many things, one in particular is constantly redacted that my curiosity was screaming at me. Then we go back in time and see exactly how they got where they got and we see all range of emotions from our favourite murderbot. I want it to be safe and happy forever.
I will never get tired of these stories and I already can't wait to reread it all again and wait for more.

Fantastic as all the others have been. I love Murderbot. They are real and they're my friend. Martha Wells always delivers.

In this installment of The Murderbot Diaries, our favorite SecUnit is back, and this time it's out to stop the evil Barish-Estranza corporation from enslaving a planet. But something is wrong with Murderbot. It's not running at full capacity. So in addition to saving a planet, it also has to save itself.

This book picks up where Network Effect left off, but it's been a while since reading that book, and there's a whole other book in between, I was confused to say the least. Don't get me wrong. System Collapse still has those things we love about Murderbot: its witty quips, its love for Sanctuary Moon, its disdain for humans despite saving their butts time and again. I'm not sure why Wells put a whole book in between these two, but I kinda wish that wouldn't have happened.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC. I enjoyed this book, just not as much as other Murderbots.

This is the first book in the Murderbot diaries series that i didn't enjoy. Perhaps it was because it was a continuation of the story events in an earlier entry, I was somewhat confused for quite some time. Maybe it was because for most of the book SecUnit was not itself wallowing in some sort of crisis caused by REDACTED and not the usual action driven character we've come to know. Or could it be that for most of the book it was non stop negotiating and discussing with the various colonists or among the crew. For whatever reason, such an incredibly short book took a lot longer to complete than it should. It really wasn't until about the last third that the story picked up for me as SecUnit finally starting acting like himself. I almost wonder if this should have really been part of the the earlier entries story, but way shorter, and was instead fleshed out to make a new book. Either way very disappointing as I really look forward to the latest adventures of MurderBot. Hopefully the next outing will be a return to form.

I am always going to be here for a new Murderbot book. I really enjoy these books. Do note that for this one, if it’s been a hot minute since you’ve read Network Effect, the only other full-length novel in this series, you should probably go re-read that first before starting this one.

This book ties in directly after the events of Network Effect and we’re still on the planet tying up loose ends. When I re-read the books in this series, I go by chronological order rather than publication order - so I start with All Systems Red (where we first meet Murderbot), Artificial Condition (where we first meet ART), Rogue Protocol (the book with poor Mickey), Exit Strategy (Murderbot meets back up with Preservation humans), Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot tries living on Preservation and gets involved in a murder mystery), THEN Network Effect (aliens!! and we meet ART again), and now we’re here with System Collapse.

This is the first Murderbot book I got an e-ARC for and while I love the story, I did find it hard to read by text? I very much prefer this story on audiobook more and hearing Kevin R. Free deliver Murderbot’s dry humor. That’s just me though. I know there’s the full cast version of the Murderbot books and those aren’t really my thing since I listen at a speed that’s not entirely compatible with constant sound effects and music. So, my review here is going to be based off listening to the Kevin R. Free audiobook narration.

Content notes include violence, droids losing limbs, PTSD, depression, mentions of colonizing humans and their planets, and mentions of slave labor.

Murderbot is going through some things in this book. But a positive here is that we get a LOT of Murderbot and ART interactions and I’m always going to be here for that. Murderbot and ART’s crews are working to get the colonists on the planet established and give them options…and start doing trade with other planets? I think they’re working to help them be independent. There’s 2 factions that we already knew about in the last book, and they do not get along. Then there’s Barish-Estranza who are definitely the Bad Guys here and are looking to trick the colonists into leaving the planet entirely and shipping them off into essentially slave labor in the Corporation Rim (or at least that’s how Murderbot describes it).

In some aspects, the story felt like it dragged a bit but it was mostly because I didn’t care very much for the political stuff surrounding the colonists and I wanted something to HAPPEN. Luckily, before too long, it did. Even got a little creepy there. But at least we have the humans (Tarik, Ratthi, and Iris), Murderbot, and a small bot version of ART (it makes sense in the story) to keep me entertained purely from their existence alone. I do wish we saw some of Three in this, but Three is away doing its own thing while our favorite SecUnit has to figure out how to acclimate to life after the events of Network Effect.

I think in the end, this was an enjoyable book. It usually takes me another re-read on audio to really fully digest the stories? By the time this book came out, I’ll have already listened to the previous Murderbot stories four times each by audio. I’m glad to be able to add this to the rotation!

The audiobook is a little funky at the beginning, or maybe it was just me? I generally do like Kevin R. Free narrating as Murderbot, and his take on the characters. But Ratthi and Tarik sounded strange at the beginning of this audiobook, as well as Murderbot. I think the voices got better after awhile, like the narrator finally found his footing with the characters again. But I have noticed that the voices don’t always match consistently from book to book when I’m listening to all of them in a row. I think I was most taken aback between Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry the first time. But it’s fine. I’m not TOO bothered by it because it’s still a strong audiobook and very listenable. What are my other options? Reading with my EYES? Please.

Overall, I really liked this book and by the time the story was over, I wasn’t ready for it to end. This book is longer than the usual novellas but not as long as Network Effect. I’m always here for more Murderbot, and now it seems like future stories will give us more adventures with Murderbot and ART. Are there more Murderbot stories confirmed? I hope so! Because I will continue to read the series no matter how many new books there are.

3.5 stars rounded up

I'm always happy to be back with Murderbot! I didn't realize though that this continued on from Network Effect and I might have done better following what was going on right away if I had re-read that one. Not one of my favorites of the series, but still fun and interesting. They're on a planet trying to get colonists to advocate for themselves and discover that an unreported colony also exists. Meanwhile, something strange is going on with Murderbot internally and they are dealing with that, while interacting with ART and other loved characters. If you like the series, this is definitely worth reading. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Another phenomenal entry in the Murderbot Diaries series. System Collapse picks up where Network Effect left off (the order of the series is a bit odd due to the placement of the Fugitive Telemetry novella, which is out of chronological sequence with the rest). and begins to tie up some of the loose ends of the previous novel. Like the earlier entries, this one has a lot to say about mental health, relationships, and what it means to be a person with free will while also taking you on a breathless, futuristic space adventure. Murderbot is, perhaps, my favorite character I've ever encountered in SFF and I hope these books continue forever.

System Collapse picks up almost immediately from the end of Network Effect which did initially throw me. I went back, reread Network Effect, gave myself like a month (I can't binge read) and then devoured System Collapse in two sittings. Murderbot is at their best (or their worst, depending on who you ask) in this new installment that might just be my favorite yet

System Collapse the next highly anticipated Murderbot novella series delivers yet again. Being back in this world of corporations, of robots, and gun fights is a thrill. I loved being immersed in this action packed detailed world. It's these installments which advance how Muderbot realizes themselves especially with this recent problem. It operates on this larger plot level with Murderbot's problems, while also navigating the individual story.

System Collapse was another fun foray into the world and mind of Murderbot. This is such a comforting series. Even when everyone is in peril you feel secure knowing that Murderbot will be there to save the day with both sass and warmth. What would the humans do without MB!? Also, I always love it when the character of ART is included in the story. I gave this one 3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 for NetGalley.

I receive an advanced e-copy from the publisher via Netgalley though all thoughts are my own.

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it was well worth the wait. I enjoyed getting back into Murderbot's point of view which is equal parts snarky, hilarious and relatable particularly with some of the events that happen.

While there wasn't a lot of action that happened, there was a lot of banter between Murderbot and ART which is what I am very much here for and can't get enough.

I highly recommend reading this particularly if you have gotten this far in the series and enjoy reading more about character than adventure though there is some.

I will happily read any book involving Murderbot and that added bonus of ART making appearances.

Trigger warnings: violence, death, contract labor

System Collapse by Martha Wells is the new Murderbot book. I won’t spoil anything here! I definitely recommend reviewing the previous volume (Network Effect) if you don’t remember details, as this book follows on directly with very little time interval; I feel the action is subordinate to Murderbot dealing with the personal fallout of those events. It was gripping! Also, Tarik rocks.