Hirondelle's Reviews > System Collapse

So, this is the 7th Murderbot book - 5 of them are novella length, one a long novel and this is kind of in between in word count. It is very much part of a series. I saw the series being called a roman fleuve, which yeah it is, but it is science fiction about a bot/construct specialized in combat and security who clandestinely fred itself from corporate ownership and got to make its own decisions and as consequence now has a LOT of social anxiety while picking friends and figuring out what it wants to do along the way.

In a series like this, some parts of it will be more crucial than others. This is not a high-intensity (relatively to plot. All the books are action heavy. Yes, all!) book, it is the aftermath, psychologically and dealing with minor stuff like oh yeah what happens to the population of that planet now (just some hundred, at most a few thousand people...) and more worldbuilding and more (glorious) stuff on how those people (human and not. The non human are just chef's kiss..) deal with each other. It is not an ideas book, but it is a really well done element of a truly original series which focus on action with a lot of thought and care to the characters and worldbuilding. And it is really really well done, Martha Wells is just fully in control of the story. It is not a mind blowing story or a series crucial point, but so worth it (I voted for another book, Children of Memory for the goodreads reader choices awards for sf and I am not changing my vote. Because CoM goes deeper, in ambition and ideas about personhood and consciousness. This is just as good technically but it stays, intentionally, more at the surface).

Going on a side commentary, Martha Wells is writing HARD science fiction. By my interpretation of "hard" which is knowledge there about how things actually work, and some thought( or a lot of thought) about possible futures and trying to make the science and engineering compatible with what is currently known about scientific possibilites and extrapolate into, not only cars, but traffic jams of the future. People kind of dismiss the Murderbot series as "space opera" or "light" but honestly her worlbuilding, establishing is just so good to me, so very "hard", defined, consistent, subtle. It is not in your face, but the details (the terraforming here. How machines would talk to other machines across coding differences) they are all so very believable, deep. Wells has some tricks I think: she evades defining things too much by having Murderbot not caring or being interested, she infodumps when she wants by having Murderbot relate something to (probably) a soap opera it watched. Not unique to this book within this series, but the series is so good all around at it, and it gets so often dismissed I wanted to point it out. It is more than good, "hard sf" enough for me.

Plotwise, well this is action oriented, as all previous books. I am not totally convinced of a plot lever point (view spoiler)[ winning the hearts and minds of the separatist colony by producing a media piece which is then watched by nearly everybody as soon as it is out. I did not believe that part, but whatever (hide spoiler)].

Also, fangirling warning, OMG, it is again fantastic fanservice. Good fanservice, not snarking about that, it is a bad thing at all. Shipping with real ships and I love it, this is my favorite ship. (view spoiler)[Relationship triangle tension incoming? With ships? I am not opposed to it at all because I trust Martha Wells and Murderbot, but the dialogue potential, oh yes. OK and totally settimg up Holism and Three for them, having, a well for lack of a better word quote-unquote-relationship? (hide spoiler)] . I wanted more Three by the way, not enough of it but what there was, was great (trying to loan its suit! ahhhhhhh...)