System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7)

Genres SciFi, Comedy, Adventure

6/10

Picking up right where the previous entry ended, System Collapse follows the adventures of Murderbot and his companion as they try to protect the recently rediscovered colony on a planet from the greedy hands of corporations.

Highlights

The core appeal of the concept is still present
But it also takes few risks in its writing making it very predictable
Characterisation of additional characters is weak
The series thrived much more in the short story format

Whilst not added to this website yet, I have red the entirety of the murderbot series and it’s been one of my reading highlights of 2023. For the most part the story doesn’t reinvent the wheel, being set in a far future where corporations control most of the galaxy and accompanying a cyborg/android whose recent consciousness gain means discovering what free will means is not a particularly surprising set up. However the story told is very laid back, what should have been a grim science fiction thriller is a much more comforting and occasionally funny read, and with the short form of the first entries, it was the perfect low stakes palate cleanser between two heavier books.

The fifth entry had however left a lukewarm impression; by moving from under 200 page short stories to a 300+ pages novel. The result felt meandering and some character traits such as the protagonist’s lack of care for anything aside watching space Netflix started losing their fun factor (you can only joke about wanting to watch a TV show whilst being in a deadly situation so many times before it becomes boring).

Whilst the sixth entry was a shorter story that now feels more like a quickly put together story to keep people busy whilst the author was finishing up their next book, this 7th entry, unfortunately does nothing to fix the issues a longer story creates. The plot is perfectly fine but not complex nor original enough to maintain interest, being yet another case of “corporation is trying to take over X so the good guys are trying to prevent it” which has already been seen serveral times in this saga. What was however complex and could have used a little more introduction are the characters. There are a lot of them, and after almost a year reading various other books, I had forgotten a great many names and the book does nothing to help readers back into the world. If like me you’ve forgotten the details of the previous books then the first few chapters are going to be quite annoying to read until you can puzzle together what is happening. This could arguably be a me issue, but I also personally dislike stories that essentially require back to back reading instead of spending just one or two pages setting the scene again.

Aside from the issues getting back into this world, the rest of the book is plainly…plain? It felt like a by the numbers book, the protagonist is sarcastic and likes watching TV shows which is sometimes funny, he’s got his human friends and his best buddy/romance interest AI and they’re on an adventure against the evil corporation. There is an attempt at character progression for the protagonist which is annoyingly hidden from the reader for almost half of the book as “that thing I can’t tell you about”, and when it is eventually revealed it comes out as a little underwhelming which has very little consequences on the rest of the story (maybe in the next entry though who knows)

Spoiler

The protagonist’s robotic systems are struggling to deal with his organic parts slowly becoming more human, i.e. the robotic protagonist is gaining more real emotions which is perplexing to the protagonist.

System Collapse was an entertaining enough read for when I couldn’t be bothered to read anything else but its plot is entirely forgettable and the Murderbot Diaries might have just reached a point where they are definitely past their prime unless the author commits to returning to a short story form.