This year had a new full Murderbot novel, System Collapse, which I was eagerly looking forward to the whole year? How eager was I – I pre-ordered the audiobook and spent Kumoricon listening to it when I was going back & forth from the con (instead of listening to anime podcasts like I normally do). So, how well did it meet my expectations? Fantastically.

System Collapse picks up not long after the end of Network Effect (maybe a few days to couple weeks later), with Murderbot providing security for Dr. Mensah and the Preservation Aux team alongside with the crew of ART (aka Perihelion), while they try to negotiate a way to get the descendants of the trapped pre-Corporation Rim colonists to leave the spectacularly contaminated with alien technology planet, freely, rather than getting roped into “Indentured Servitude” (meaning slavery) with the corporation that is trying to annex the planet, Barish-Estranza (who were part of the problem last novel).

What makes a lot of the plot in this novel especially interesting is that in last novel’s experiences were particularly traumatic for Murderbot in a lot of respects – while some of the previous books have picked up not long after the one before, there was always a few weeks to even a month between installments of the series. With it, we got the implication that Murderbot had some time to watch media to – not cope, but to avoid coping in its own way. Here Murderbot hasn’t had that time. So, in short, Murderbot is having to deal with PTSD, and has not only to work through that, but also cope with the idea that it is more human that it feels comfortable being.

This all made for a tremendously strong novel that I absolutely enjoyed, and I’m definitely looking forward to Martha Welles’ next Murderbot Novel.

System Collapse is available from Amazon, Kobo, Alibris, and Bookshop.org – buying anything through those links helps to support the site.

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