System Collapse by Martha Wells [Review]

System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells
Format: ebook
Source: borrowed through Kindle Unlimited
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: June 5, 2025

The Murderbot Diaries
1. All Systems Red
2. Artificial Condition
2.5. Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy
3. Rogue Protocol
4. Exit Strategy
4.5. Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
5. Network Effect
6. Fugitive Telemetry
7. System Collapse - Hardcover | Kindle

Martha Wells
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

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.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.

Thoughts on System Collapse: We're back with the colony on the far end of nowhere that's not doing so great. With ART's systems compromised and them unable to leave the system, Murderbot and his humans plus ART's crew are attempting to save the colonists before the Barish-Estranza group can convince them to sign themselves into indentured servitude. Which is precisely as awful as it sounds. (As an aside, Murderbot and the others would have tried to help the colonists even if ART's systems weren't compromised. They have this weird idea where they think people shouldn't be treated like disposable goods and forced into perpetual slavery for corporate giants. Go figure.)

(As another aside, this thinking is precisely why Dr. Mensah and her group were so accepting of Murderbot having free will in the first place. It's, like, their entire cultural identity and Murderbot was pretty lucky to have contracted with the Preservation Aux team when it comes down to it.)

So. Murderbot is a mess. It's experiencing some system glitches that it can't explain and it's kind of sunk into a weird depressive state. The humans are trying to give it space to work things out and ART is being its usual self (which is to say biting and maybe a little sarcastic). And Murderbot? Well, it's going through the motions, but also kind of not. So when things go south on the planet, Murderbot half-heartedly steps in to do what it can. And somewhere along the way it starts dealing with its issues.

This is the last book that's currently published and I REALLY hope we get more of this anti-social construct and the situations it has to work itself (and its humans) out of. Murderbot has a lot going on in its organic pathways and I've enjoyed every minute of it. Even the ones that made me tense (I'm looking at you, ART, and the kidnapping/rescue attempt you orchestrated).