System Collapse

The Murderbot Diaries, Book 7

By: Martha Wells

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free

Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The million-copy, New York Times bestselling Murderbot series is back in another full-length novel adventure!

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

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

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.

©2023 Martha Wells (P)2023 Recorded Books

The Narration is Excellent as Always

System Collapse is still the best of the MB diaries series, but this book really does unpack a lot of the emotional aftermath from it and allows MB to grow into themselves in the process. They need a hug (or someone to quietly watch media with) and a nap, but I’m excited to see where they’ll go from here. My only complaint is that I wish we saw more of Mensa in this one as I’m still deeply invested in her trauma recovery.

Different but still great!

Even Murderbots get exhausted. But with new friends and civilians to protect and help from old friends things can still work out.

I love all of Martha Wells’ books. But Murderbot and Cloud are probably my favorite characters.

I hope there will be more!

More Murderbot

Another absolute treasure. An absolute joy to listen to. Need more though... So much more.

Who is the "real" Murderbot?

No one knows the real Murderbot. Not even Murderbot. Nevertheless, we are learning more and more who Murderbot is or wants to be or thinks it wants to be or is confused about what it thinks that it wants to be.

great

loved it as usual! krf is uniformly excellent and the story is fun. mb is the best!

Great series

Not as good as the last couple, but still a great read. Love this world and the Murderbot character.

Please Write More of this series

Please write more murder bot stories. Your series is great but so far I have read them all. So please write more for everyone to read. Great series, please don't stop writing them.

Fantastic

Absolutely excellent book. I could honestly listed to 10 hours of just Art and Murderbot bickering. They are wonderful characters.

Great Addition to a Great Series

Wells succeeds again! This entry further develops SecUnit in a wonderful way, the action is non-stop and described in a cinematic fashion, and she manages to add a twist (no spoilers) where the creation of art and literature saves that day. Love it!

No Murderbot like Kevin R. Free's Murderbot

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

I have read Murderbot on occasion, you know, with my eyes, as opposed to listening on Audible, but the experience is best, in my opinion when hearing Murder portrayed by Kevin R. Free. What a great voice and what great acting!

I enjoyed the book, especially once it really got going in chapter 4. I was especially excited to see Ratthi dealing with relationship issues - we've heard, ever since "All Systems Red" how good he is at romantic relationships and how he has so many of them, but up until this book we've never seen any examples. And there have been plenty of opportunities - throughout the series we've seen Ratthi more often than any of the other original PresAux Survey team from ASR, possibly even more than Mensah. He's clearly one of Wells' favorites. I was disappointed we didn't see more about his relationship or potential relationship with Tariq. I also thought something might have been happening between Tariq and Leonide, of all people, and I was disappointed that nothing did, at least by the end of the book.

I liked how the Leonide character was treated - even though she is an awful Barish-Estranza corporate ghoul, she became humanized. I could easily see a three-way relationship with her, Tariq and Ratthi, with Leonide becoming even less evil thanks to their influence - next book please, Martha Wells!

I heard Wells say in an interview that she thought the documentary-creation sequence was an important part of the book, and she seemed disappointed it hadn't been mentioned in reviews. I wasn't that excited by it, and on reflection, I guess it's because I could put together a documentary myself, with a team of people and Adobe Premiere Pro. So Murderbot doing something I could do isn't as exciting as when it is doing something I can't do - like turning down pain sensors; or hacking into and taking control of a system; or seeing into multiple locations through its drones or kicking the asses of multiple Corporation Rim goons plus a few of their SecUnits all at once.

For me, Murderbot is most enjoyable when it's demonstrating the truth of the Arthur C. Clark third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

That being said, it was a cool commentary on the power of a well-crafted piece of media, especially relevant in the present human epoch, with deep fake technology and fake news.

Murderbot is rapidly becoming the Johnny Appleseed of rogue SecUnits (plus a ComfortBot) and I wonder if the Corporation Rim is going to sit up and take notice of this threat to one of its most profitable business models, after (I assume) enslaving humans. Wells' portrayal of the heartlessness and bottom-line obsession of corporations is one of the best aspects of the Murderbot universe. That and the complete comfort with non-binary humans and non-binary relationships.

Can't wait for the next Murderbot installment!