Hirondelle's Reviews > System Collapse
System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)
by
by
![1123165](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p2/1123165.jpg)
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) .
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) . I wanted more Three by the way, not enough of it but what there was, was great (trying to loan its suit! ahhhhhhh...)
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) .
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) . I wanted more Three by the way, not enough of it but what there was, was great (trying to loan its suit! ahhhhhhh...)
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
System Collapse.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
October 20, 2022
– Shelved as:
to-read
October 20, 2022
– Shelved
October 20, 2022
– Shelved as:
shut-up-and-take-my-money
October 20, 2022
– Shelved as:
sf
November 21, 2023
–
Started Reading
November 22, 2023
–
60.0%
"People often do not comment on it and there many who consider this "soft" sf (unlike stuff with very dodgy science indeed) or "space opera", but Martha Wells worldbuilding, her extrapolations into engineering and how stuff would work and society and all is so understated, camouflaged but so good, well thought...
And the tricks she uses to explain and not explain infodumps. Such good writing."
And the tricks she uses to explain and not explain infodumps. Such good writing."
November 23, 2023
–
Finished Reading
November 24, 2023
–
100.0%
"Martha Wells is giving us perfect shipping material. With ships. She knows perfectly well what she is doing and yes please. And very good in all details.
My vote on the Goodreads choice awards for sf wilk still remain for children of memory though."
My vote on the Goodreads choice awards for sf wilk still remain for children of memory though."
Comments Showing 1-32 of 32 (32 new)
date
newest »
![Down arrow](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/down_arrow-1e1fa5642066c151f5e0136233fce98a.gif)
message 1:
by
jrendocrine with reading looking up!
(new)
-
rated it 4 stars
Nov 25, 2023 05:14AM
![jrendocrine with reading looking up!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1452347446p1/8760701.jpg)
reply
|
flag
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Spad53](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1631783883p1/139703944.jpg)
I don't understand this at all, to me calling it space opera is a compliment.
And those who think space-opera is light should have a dose of Alastair Reynolds. There is light space opera, but it's not necessary to read. Murderbot doesn't need classsifying. it's simply good.
![Chlorine](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_25x33-ccd24e68f4773d33a41ce08c3a34892e.png)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Chlorine](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_25x33-ccd24e68f4773d33a41ce08c3a34892e.png)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Spad53](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1631783883p1/139703944.jpg)
In Swedish we have female " hon" , and male "han" , and we have a newly invented "hen" which is neutral. I found it ever so useful when I was doing IT-support, we'd get mails from all over the world signed with a strange name that I had no idea if it was a girl or boy.
Forwarding to someone who knew the answer with "can you help it"
sounded impolite. We did have a lot of fun guessing.
![carol.](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1307934801p1/3978225.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
Portuguese is a gendered language and it is impossible to avoid it when conjugating words but anyway one gender is neutra and is used if not certain and anyway the gender of word and its matching associated words are not about sex.
I call murderbot she in Portuguese because it is a secunit so a unit and unidades are she. It has no meaning and has no relation to any kind of roles ( units and bridges and mountains and whales…) or sex parts.
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
Portuguese has no officiall body to rule over it so it is weird how things evolve and tend to converge. ( it diverges wildly between European/african variant and Brazilian but that ship has sailed long ago and are not reconcilable any more anyway)
![carol.](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1307934801p1/3978225.jpg)
![Spad53](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1631783883p1/139703944.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
And sometimes it is the "thing" itself which decides. Amazon launched its portuguese site and calls itself "a amazon", so that is solved. But "the web summit" in their ads called it self "o web summit", which is totally not what media calls it or people call it (because if it "uma conferência") so we are mostly ignoring it.
Spad, yes, it is fascinating how languages create these categories and categories so often do not "translate", move across different kinds of languages, and how much it might mold thought (or not!)
![Spad53](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1631783883p1/139703944.jpg)
![urwa](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1560503488p1/14358187.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
![Nataliya](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1619377733p1/3672777.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
We totally need a spin off with Three and Holism or any of them on their own really (Yo Martha, please... For charity, for anything really?) And she might give it to us, there are some pretty priceless relationship bits (view spoiler) in recent books, she knows very well what we like..
![Spad53](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1631783883p1/139703944.jpg)
![urwa](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1560503488p1/14358187.jpg)
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
Yeah, she is very very good at portraying how AIs might actually talk to one another, and think. Best at it I can think. All kinds of little details, say like Murderbot thinking in exact times and she manages to make ideas like different protocols and languages feel realistic but not cumbersome.
And she is also very good at something almost nobody gives her credit for (or notice?) which she is writing interesting stuff about gender and gender versus sex. In the Witch King there were all these interesting concepts possibly lurking underneath, just matter of factedly and it was so much more interesting (and realistic) than some in-your-face-see-me-be-modern stuff examples (which often are all not really thought out...)
![urwa](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1560503488p1/14358187.jpg)
Ah goodreads, will it ever work as it's supposed to? Might have to do with the fact that i was a bit mia?
But yes the way Murderbot translates the deeper meanings of what the other intelligence are saying but by this book the reader can almost translate it like that without murderbot?! Like I did not realise that until Murderbot started talking with AdaCol2 and it's so so cool imo.
She really is great at creating a queernormative world, I think it might have to do with how Murderbot really doesn't care much about gender or sex so it's there in the background in what it reads on the feed or whatever, but yeah it was really well done in Witch King as well.
![Hirondelle](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1299433477p1/1123165.jpg)
Yeah, she is very good at worldbuilding, except she is not splashy about it. She has a fantastic excuse to not have to explain too many things because Murderbot was not interested in learning them and she can Murderbot referring to its soaps to drop hints or explain things.. I am a fangirl admittedly...