“System Collapse” picks right up with the events from “Network Effect” and Murderbot, the ART crew, and others, working together to try to figure out how to keep the Barish-Estranza corporation from trying to “own” the planet and the colonists that have been living there.
This was not a bad book by any stretch, but to me there was way too much going on that I just after a while stopped trying to track what was happening to who and why. The first portion of the book I thought was great, but when the crew went out to explore the planet and found [redacted] I found myself getting bored. I just thought there was way too much over explanation happening at one point. I think the book only really picked up again at the 70 percent mark, but I am still giving this 4 stars because I love this series, Murderbot, and ART.
So first Murderbot, I thought that this played with a ton of themes, but honestly it reminds me a bit of “Human Is” episode in the Electric Dreams anthology. What makes someone a human? We have Murderbot being more tuned into itself more since it has human neural tissue and is experiencing stress, anxiety, and even realizes they may be experiencing PTSD, similar to Dr. Mensah. Murderbot is doing all of this while keepings its humans alive.
I also thought that it was interesting how Wells keeps talking about the concept of slavery in this book and how the Preservation Rim folks see that as 100 percent wrong and why they were probably the best people to have met Murderbot and realized that he was a rogue SecUnit. Every step of the way they have pushed their Murderbot to choose whatever it wanted and did all they could to make sure that no one else would get in the way of that. And it was nice to see ART’s crew feeling the same way.
I think that the ending of the book was a nice way to wrap up some of the arcs that were going on with regards to what path Murderbot would choose.