December 2nd, 2023
Home | Log in!

On Top Shelf
Susan C. SheaSusan C. Shea
Fresh Pick
THE TWELVE BOOKS OF CHRISTMAS
THE TWELVE BOOKS OF CHRISTMAS

New Books This Week

Fresh Fiction Box

Video Book Club

Holiday Giveaways


December's Must-Reads: Top Books to Close Out the Year with a Bang

Slideshow image


Since your web browser does not support JavaScript, here is a non-JavaScript version of the image slideshow:

slideshow image
Reporter Emma Cross confronts high society and murder at a 1900s Newport yacht gathering.


slideshow image
Unraveling a secret aboard the missing Goliath, where history collides with present danger.


slideshow image
Undercover agents at a holiday party face unexpected danger and a budding romance.


slideshow image
Lord Julian unravels a dangerous mystery to reveal a child's heritage as well as his own birthright.


slideshow image
Uncovering the truth: A determined mother, a torn DA, and a dark mystery.


slideshow image
A Ukrainian medic and a Marine sniper's perilous mission ignites unexpected passion amid danger.


System Collapse

System Collapse, November 2023
Murderbot Diaries #8
by Martha Wells

Tordotcom
256 pages
ISBN: 1250826977
EAN: 9781250826978
Kindle: B0BQGJHG3Q
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
Add to Wish List


Purchase



"Lethal Murderbot with a heart fights against an evil corporation"

Fresh Fiction Review

System Collapse
Martha Wells

Reviewed by Make Kay
Posted November 13, 2023

Science Fiction

I am doing a giddy little dance in my chair right now, because everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit bot is back, full of snark and existential angst as it grapples with its unsuspected humanity.  Martha Wells brings us SYSTEM COLLAPSE, book seven in the New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries series. This utterly fabulous series has rightfully won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, Locus Awards, and an American Library Association Award.

Murderbot is a SecUnit, designed as a security bot with a few organic components integrated into its system.  Murderbot named itself after it hacked its own governor module and freed itself from the control of the evil corporation that rented it out as a security force to protect human space explorers.  I adore Murderbot with everything in me!  It is so snide and pithy, and the insights into human behavior it has as it struggles with its own sentience are spot-on and delightfully funny. 

Murderbot has a growing found family around it, and the interactions with “its humans” are a main source of delight in these books.  Additionally, there are all kinds of creepy and chilling beings, both alien creatures and other humans, that keep the pace snappy and intensity high.

My only complaint with this book is the length-- at only 256 pages, I would have loved more time to revel in a longer Murderbot story.  SYSTEM COLLAPSE picks up right where the sixth book, FUGITIVE TELEMETRY, left off with colonists on an abandoned planet infected with alien material, so this is a book series that should be enjoyed in reading order.   

The Murderbot Diaries catapulted to the top tier of my favorite series with the first book, and each successive release makes me more enamored of the series.  I highlighted the crap out of this book-- there are so many fantastic lines!  Sci-fi fans will be thrilled to get their hands on another marvelous Martha Wells book.  Murderbot is sure to delight the seasoned reader, and readers new to the series will be well rewarded to dive into the whole captivating series.

Learn more about System Collapse

SUMMARY

Martha Wells's 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.


What do you think about this review?

Comments

No comments posted.

Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!

 

 

 

© 2003-2023 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy