System Collapse by Martha Wells-Book
From a Google Image Search – Tor.com
Ever since I met Martha Wells’ Murderbot I have looked forward to new books in the series, although they are finished much too quickly. The latest book is called System Collapse. This installment in the life and times of Murderbot opens with an action scene. Some ag-bots have been contaminated with an alien virus and are attacking anyone or anything that gets too close. If you are thinking about starting the series with this book, don’t. Start at the beginning. In this installment, Wells doesn’t do much in the way of summarizing previous adventures. SecUnit is here with ART, a university-run ship that conducts research and supports humans and bots who are being exploited by corporations. Can a ship be a character? Of course, just think of the Enterprise.
Fighting against alien contamination to protect a human community is difficult enough but our SecUnit is dealing with a personal issue (redacted) and a ship from Barish Estranza, a corporation that tricks populations in planetary settlements that are in disarray into signing contracts to work in corporate mines as corporation serfs or slaves. It turns out that some of the colonists on this planet split off to establish a separate community, but all communications have been abandoned between the original group and the splinter group. SecUnit finds those who left living in a pre-corporate space, but so does Barish Estranza.
SecUnit usually soothes itself when overloads occur or it needs to rest up by watching episodes of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, which it wishes it could access much more than the constant need to pay attention to real-world events allows, but Sanctuary also taught SecUnit lots of useful strategies and has educated SecUnit (an organic and inorganic construct) in human behaviors. In fact, SecUnit introduced ART to the videos and he also uses it to help other SecUnits after they disconnect their governor modules.
What has SecUnit redacted? Is SecUnit becoming more and more human? Will SecUnit be given a human name? That is all up to Martha Wells. I am just a human organic form who enjoys following SecUnit all along the corporate rim and beyond. It’s a literary amuse bouche in space.
