★★★★☆ Murderbot is not all there

System Collapse

Martha Wells

In my review of Rogue Protocol I described Murderbot as "the adorably cuddly ball of barbed-wire that she naturally is". But Murderbot's bristling exterior has been breached. In Network Effect Murderbot encountered alien remnant contamination, which did something -- she's not quite sure what -- to her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I had told Mensah.

“I think you might know,” she had said. “You just don’t want to talk about it.”

She is definitely not 100%, and she knows it. In fact, her knowing it is something like 80% of the problem -- Murderbot is suffering from that oh-so-familiar-to-humans problem, a failure of self-confidence. She needs help, and her relationships, always an uncomfortable subject for Murderbot, with "her" humans and with ART are essential.

Short bookkeeping note here: although Network Effect is nominally book 5 and Fugitive Telemetry book 6 in The Murderbot Diaries, the chronological order and, in my opinion, best reading order is Fugitive Telemetry followed by Network Effect followed by System Collapse. We thus begin System Collapse where Network Effect left off. Murderbot, ART, ART's crew, and some of Murderbot's friends from Preservation Authority are still on or near the unnamed planet where Murderbot and several others were compromised by alien contamination, from which Murderbot mostly rescued them.

As usual in a Murderbot novel, there are two plots. The ostensible plot is the pew-pew space battle plot, except in this case it takes place mostly on the planet's surface, so it is not, strictly speaking a "space" battle. But always, the more important and interesting plot is what's happening to Murderbot herself. At the center of both plots is an issue that has been central to The Murderbot Diaries at least since book 3, Rogue Protocol, and arguably since book 1: corporate slavery. Corporation Rim, the powerful governing entity in the background, permits and condones indentured servitude that is, in every effective way, a form of chattel slavery. Murderbot has repeatedly shown us how much she hates this. As the publisher's blurb tells us

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.

That's the main subject of the pew-pew non-space battle plot. To fight them, Murderbot has to discover a new ability.

She becomes a skilled entertainment producer. This is entirely consistent with her fascination with media feeds such as Sanctuary Moon.

System Collapse is a good extension of The Murderbot Diaries. It also hints, I believe, at the direction we can expect in future books.

I thank NetGalley and Tordotcom for an advance reader copy. This review expresses my honest opinions.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

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