I’ve been a huge fan of Martha Wells’s Murderbot series since the first volume appeared in 2018. Since then Wells published seven new Murderbot books. The latest book in the series is System Collapse. It is the weakest book in the series.

I was disappointed while reading System Collapse. The story dragged as SecUnit confronted some of its problems created in Network Effect.

SecUnit and its colleagues try to rescue a colony on a planet about to be controlled by a corporation that will make the colonists slaves. Plus, there’s alien contamination and several other problems to contend with. But the story drags and the long battle scene near the end of the book doesn’t quite rescue the storyline.

Then I read the interview with Martha Wells in the February 2024 issue of LOCUS. “I didn’t have to do the chemo, and only had to do four weeks of radiation. …They found out I have a genetic anomaly that means I have a higher chance of getting pancreatic cancer and melanoma. …It was very stressful–it was a lot!” Later in the interview, Wells refers to her problems writing System Collapse: “Murderbot’s interior voice is very similar to my own. Instead of dancing around a lot of my issues with anxiety and depression, I finally used Murderbot to talk about them.” That explains the very real divergences in System Collapse from the rest of the Murderbot series.

The problems Wells had to overcome to finish this book shows her strength of will and determination. I just hope the next Murderbot book recovers from Martha Wells’s personal system collapse. GRADE: C+

THE MURDERBOT SERIES: (just click on the link for the reviews)

All Systems Red (2018)

Artificial Condition (2018)

Rogue Protocol (2018)

Exit Strategy (2019)

Network Effect (2021)

Fugitive Telemetry (2021)