{"id":779,"date":"2023-09-19T14:12:46","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/?p=779"},"modified":"2023-09-19T14:16:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:16:13","slug":"system-collapse-martha-wells-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/779\/system-collapse-martha-wells-review\/","title":{"rendered":"System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, 7) by Martha Wells – Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"System<\/a>System Collapse<\/a><\/strong>
\nby Martha Wells<\/p>\n

Tor Publishing Group
\nSci Fi & Fantasy
\nPub Date: 14 Nov 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

DESCRIPTION\/SYNOPSIS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells’s New York Times<\/em> bestselling Murderbot Diaries series.<\/p>\n

Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can\u2019t have the planet, they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn\u2019t running within normal operational parameters. ART\u2019s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza\u2019s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they\u2019re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what\u2019s wrong with itself, and fast!<\/p>\n

Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.<\/p>\n

REVIEW:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, with my favorite being Network Effect, <\/em>which truly kicks ass. (My least favorite was Fugitive Telemetry<\/em>, mainly because I didn’t think the whodunit format worked all that well. And Network Effect<\/em> is a hard act to follow!) So I welcomed the opportunity to review an eGalley of the newest Sec Unit tale, System Collapse<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, due out in November.<\/p>\n

Where does System Collapse<\/em> fall between the last two, in terms of strength of story? Much closer to Network Effect<\/em>, though it picks up the story-line of Preservation’s encounter with the unscrupulous Barish-Estranza corporation.<\/p>\n

On one side are the humanitarian Preserveration folk (along with our favorite SecUnit); on the other side, the ruthless Barish-Estranza corporation. Both sides are vying for the hearts and minds of colonists who are also dealing with dangerous alien-tech-contamination. Moreover, the Preservation team finds out about a separatist group of colonists who are even more clueless about what’s happening. Naturally, having no history with either side, these colonists have no idea who to trust\u2014or who to fear! If they make the wrong choice, they’ll end up as slave labor for the rest of their natural lives. Complicating matters, SecUnit can’t trust itself after a hallucinatory episode and an unexpected shutdown.<\/p>\n

SecUnit has always been the model of competence and efficiency, in terms of security, keeping its team safe from outside threats and, sometimes, from their own ill-advised choices. Introducing self-doubt is a significant problem when every choice becomes a life-or-death decision, adding another layer of suspense to a situation that is already tense. The reason for the eponymous “system collapse” is never fully explained, so I wonder if that will be the subject of the next Murderbot Diaries installment.<\/p>\n

With SecUnit’s unexpected (and certainly unwelcome) layer of fallibility in the mix, System Collapse<\/em> builds to a nail-biting conclusion, since any mistake, any hesitation can lead to fatal results for SecUnit and its team, and a life of misery for the colonists they’ve been sent to rescue. It remains to be seen if the “system collapse” is a one-time fluke, something SecUnit will completely recover from and be forgotten… or if it signals another step toward greater humanity for our beloved MurderBot.<\/p>\n

The Murderbot Diaries<\/strong><\/p>\n

All Systems Red<\/em>
\nArtificial Condition<\/em>
\nRogue Protocol<\/em>
\nExit Strategy<\/em>
\nNetwork Effect<\/em> (A Murderbot novel)
\nFugitive Telemetry<\/em>
\nSystem Collapse<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: I received a free eGalley of System Collapse<\/strong><\/a> from Net Galley in consideration of an unbiased review.<\/p>\n

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any links to Amazon products from these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does <\/em>not affect the price you pay at Amazon.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

System Collapse by Martha Wells Tor Publishing Group Sci Fi & Fantasy Pub Date: 14 Nov 2023 DESCRIPTION\/SYNOPSIS: Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells’s New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series. Am I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[276,275,150,256,274,277],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-martha-wells","tag-murderbot-diaries","tag-science-fiction","tag-sf","tag-system-collapse","tag-tor-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":786,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.passarella.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}