Suhailah's Reviews > System Collapse

“So the next time I get optimistic about something, I want one of you to punch me in the face.”

☒ 7th/final released installment complete! I am officially all caught up! I am patiently waiting for the next installment, Martha Wells! No pressure. Hehehehe!

Murderbot has been through so much and yet again finds itself in situations where it must save more humans, investigate under dangerous circumstances, and deal with new threats all while trying not to get itself killed or worst of all…. leak fluids. System Collapse (the second full-length novel) continues immediately after the events of Network Effect but something is different with Murderbot. Something has rendered it less functional than before. Something is very off with our dear favorite SecUnit, the one we have come to love so much! I felt so bad and was dying to know what it was about.

“Something in me broke.”

Murderbot has redacted! This results in less than optimal performance and various forms of mental suffering such as panic attacks, forgetfulness, and freezing up. Poor Murderbot!!

And it isn’t until about 5 chapters in do we finally get a full explanation about what poor Murderbot is going through. I was genuinely impressed with the brilliant presentation of this concept. I really appreciated the focus on trauma recovery and PTSD, and it was especially interesting to try to understand how this affects SecUnits. Because let’s admit it, Murderbot has witnessed and actively been involved in a lot of traumatic events!

“It should be reassuring that humans don’t get what other humans are thinking, either, but it just highlights how fucked up human neural tissue can be.”

“Yeah, I’ll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn’t I think of that earlier. (That was sarcasm, I have too much organic neural tissue for that to work.) (Of course I’ve already tried it.)”

Last thoughts:
Huge shout out to Three – it is so adorable and sweet in my opinion!! I really am begging for Three to get more interactions and page time in future releases. I love how it has practically become part of the team. #Freedomforallsecunits

I can only wonder what comes next, and I am very excited. I will miss this world and Murderbot so much while I am waiting though!