Did I expect for System Collapse to be excellent, hilarious, and deeply touching? Yes. Is it? Yes – by my standards, at least. System Collapse, the seventh and final instalment in the beloved Murderbot Diaries, a series written by Martha Wells that I absolutely adore and cannot believe I didn’t start earlier. So how does this finale unfold, you ask…

Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse. Everyone’s favourite lethal SecUnit is back. Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize. But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast. Yeah, this plan is…not going to work.

What’s wrong with Murderbot? Well, I can’t tell you that because it is a rather big spoiler, but I can tell you that the way it is written into the narrative style, details, and its reveal are so brilliantly executed that it makes for a great tension point, followed by an even greater drive to fret over Murderbot. From its humour to its view on life that slowly shifts and develops as it comes in contact with non-space opera examples of humanity, interactions, and human considerations, Murderbot is both so naive and so wise and I cannot help but love it.

System Collapse is wild, with a lot of tension build up across the board from both a plot action perspective and the personal circumstances for Murderbot. The separation between true ART and Murderbot aids in the underlying emotions and tensions in the novel as well, making for some dramatic moments. Murderbot’s crew and ART’s crew gel so well with each other while still providing the personal distance required for mistakes, uncertainties, and secrets to form. It’s nice how after so many novels, we have slightly different groups to follow which keeps the action interesting and dialogue fresh without recycling known patterns from earlier books.

I haven’t even touched on the very human interactions and emotions that are discovered and navigated in System Collapse. It truly is one of the best and most effective science fiction series when it comes to sharing very human thoughts, dilemmas, and revelations. I think one of the real positives with this series – which I will get into more detail when I do my series review – is that so many deep and meaningful conversations and introspections can occur without the heavy setting or science fiction expositions bogging the messages down. It makes it so easy to read not only in terms of word choice, but regarding the engagement with the novels as well.

System Collapse is yet another stellar novel in a series of phenomenal space opera adventures. Martha Wells is a tremendous talent in the sci-fi field (among many incredible authors, let’s be real here) and I implore you to check out the Murderbot Diaries and dive into the novels yourself.