System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content:Strong Language

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!
 

 

This book was a little disappointing for me. I found it to be a bit dull compared to the others, and my mind was constantly wandering while I was reading it. There were moments in the other books in the series that would get a little dull, but this whole book was that way for me. I think what was really missing was Murderbot's snarkiness, the humor, and the action scenes. It was very mild here. Murderbot is dealing with PTSD in this one and it just didn't work for me. Like Network Effect, this was a full length novel, and I've found that I like it in shorter doses better.

For some reason I find the plot of this series hard to follow, and the books jumping all over the timeline doesn't help. This one is supposed to take place after Network Effect, but I can't remember a lot of what happened in Network Effect, so for me it was just a random story. I'll keep reading these regardless of how I feel about this particular book, but next time I'm going to wait for the audio. I think I enjoy listening to these more than reading them. Hopefully, next time we will get more of the snarky murderbot that I love.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for providing me with an ARC of this book.