SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on November 14, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

System Collapse is the latest work in Martha Wells' "The Murderbot Diaries" series, her award winning series about the construct SecUnit (an artificial being created out of biological and machine parts) who goes by "Murderbot" internally despite being an introverted anxious being who would rather watch media/soap-operas rather than do anything else.  If you're somehow unaware of Murderbot, despite large popularity and awards, well, its protagonist is incredibly lovable as it tries to stay out of trouble despite hacking itself to freedom...and despite it falling in with a group of humans it comes to care about and has to keep from getting themselves killed from time to time.  The story began with a quarter of novellas (beginning with All Systems Red), expanded to a full length novel (Network Effect), and then continued with a prequel novella last year (Fugitive Telemetry). 

System Collapse is I guess a short novel - it's almost in between the page length of Network Effect and the Novellas, at something like 250 pages - and it's a direct sequel largely to Network Effect.  And it's fun in the way Murderbot works tend to be, as Murderbot deals with its old Preservation humans and its new ART-crew humans (plus a spinoff of ART) as they try to convince some separatist colonists to trust them over the ambassadors for a dangerous corporation.  At the same time, the book's in between length seems to have come at a cost, as the book also deals with a plot of Murderbot dealing with traumatic flashbacks that may or may not be accurate and kind of fumbles that plotline just a little bit.  There's enough interesting here that I rather enjoyed this, and Wells' prose is always well done, but the in-between length and incomplete trauma plotline make this one one of my lower ranked works in this really great series. 

Plot Summary:  

Murderbot, ART, and their humans are still stuck in the system containing the alien-contaminated lost colony planet where ART had previously lost its human crew.  They'd prefer to be out of there already....except additional ships from the corporate entity Barish-Estranza have arrived in system to try and claim the world...and to "indenture" (really enslave) the humans still living down there.  Murderbot and ART's humans are trying to create a legal fiction that will ensure the colonists' freedom...but it will require the colonists' cooperation, which is a lot harder than it should be to get.  

So when one of the friendly colonists mentions that there was a separatist faction of the colony that left long ago and went underground at one of the Poles, Murderbot, some of the humans, and a drone partition of ART head off to the pole to investigate.  But what they find there are underground tunnels where danger may lurk at every turn and colonists who are even less willing to trust them than the rest of the colony...and who might be more amenable to the corporation's lies.  Add in some unexplained false traumatic memories that keep popping up in Murderbot's head, and the team will clearly have its hands full trying to save these new stupid humans....and not becoming the victims of corporate violence themselves....

After Network Effect, readers probably expected the next Murderbot sequel to focus on Murderbot's new adventures with ART, their growing relationships and Murderbot dealing with a new crew - ART's crew - who are different from the humans it is used to.  System Collapse decides not to do that, instead picking up right after Network Effect and throwing an obstacle in the way of Murderbot and ART getting to that point.  In a way, it kind of feels disappointing that we get this speedbump here, even though the story is written well and Murderbot's narration feels fun and enjoyable as always.  

That said, System Collapse deals specifically with a pair of new issues and concepts for Murderbot to explore, and those seem generally to be worthy developments for the character which kind of justify this speedbump.  The first is Murderbot's being put in a position where it, and their humans, have to convince other humans - and possibly even SecUnits like Three - that Murderbot's humans have their best interest at heart and not to trust the evil corporate entities.  How this plotline plays out is kind of a further exploration of Murderbot/2.0's overtures to Three in Network Effect and works really well here - I won't spoil how it plays out, but it's a very Murderbot form of plot and character development and I enjoyed it greatly.  

The second issue is that Murderbot is now dealing with trauma, a kind of PTSD, where a false memory that seems to combine bits of other memories - of Murderbot suffering violence during the events of Network Effect - is causing Murderbot to freeze and shut down at seemingly random occasions.  Murderbot can't quite figure out why this is happening - indeed, it labels the phenomenon as [redacted] and refuses to explain it in the narrative for the first third of the book.  But clearly it's suffering from trauma and needs some way to deal with it.  And it's there that honestly this book kind of disappoints, because the book kind of assumes this trauma will be resolved without ever showing Murderbot finding a way to deal with it?  There's talk about discussing later with one of the Preservation doctors but it never happens here and the results of the trauma are never dealt with.  I guess if this is followed up on in a next book it'll be okay, but well, this book is titled "System Collapse" so I kind of expected this book to feature it?  

Overall though while System Collapse is not a highlight in this series, it's still very good and a solid addition.  I just look forward to the story finally moving past this system, should there be any future Murderbot stories.