SecUnit is not ok. I am also not ok. System Collapse, the seventh in the Murderbot Diaries series is stressful. Amazing, but stressful as heck.
You cannot read System Collapse if you haven’t read Network Effect. The action picks up not long after Network Effect ends. ART is still repairing its worm hole drive, the Preservation crew and the University crew are working together to create a charter that will give the colonists (formerly known as the Targets) control over their planet and their future. Barish-Estranza is there still trying to stake a claim on the planet and its inhabitants. The alien remnant contamination continues to be a problem. More than at any other point in the series, Murderbot is struggling with trauma. On top of the ever present danger posed to its humans by other humans, unknown threats from planetary flora and fauna, corporations, and alien remnant contamination, Murderbot thinks it might be a danger to its humans.
The Murderbot Diaries have always been about being disposable in a private corporation dominated universe. Many of us fell in love with SecUnit (Murderbot if you are in the know), its struggle to make a place for itself outside its former owner’s control, and its entirely relatable desire to be left alone to watch the entertainment feed. It’s easy to identify with Murderbot as we live through this slow rolling apocalypse wondering if we will have to work until we drop dead, and we watch the illusion of autonomy get stripped away. Murderbot can hack systems and shoot things while grumpily trying to make the most ethical choices possible in a way that we can’t. While trauma has been a constant undercurrent in the series, in System Collapse trauma movies to the forefront. Murderbot suffered multiple traumas and though they have an external support system for recovery, its internal coping mechanisms are not robust. It must overcome the internalized message from its former owners that it is only worthwhile if it can perform its job.
Martha Wells writes about such terribly human things while also giving us a banger of an adventure. This installment hit me particularly hard because I learned that my father died recently and our estrangement was directly related to issues of trauma, (the lack of) coping skills, and (the lack of) external support for healing.
It would technically be fiction, but the kind of fiction that was true in all the ways that mattered.
I love you, Murderbot, but not in a weird way.
CW: trauma, violence in past and on page, attempted murder, physical and emotional injury.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Tordotcom and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.
