System Collapse [Dramatized Adaptation]

The Murderbot Diaries [Dramatized Adaptation] #7

by Martha Wells, David Cui Cui (Narrator), Debi Tinsley (Narrator)

Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

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.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction, Novella, Science Fiction Fantasy

Audio CD

Published March 4, 2024

About the author

Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, the Ile-Rien series, The Murderbot Diaries series, and other fantasy novels, most recently Witch King (Tordotcom, 2023). She has also written media tie-in fiction for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and non-fiction. She has won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, Locus Awards, and a Dragon Award, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the British Science Fiction Association Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, the Sunday Times Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and her books have been published in twenty-five languages.

She is also a consulting producer on The Murderbot Diaries series for Apple TV+.

Reviews

[Suhailah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dramatized Adaptation Audiobook ☆☆☆☆☆

Another riveting audio installment!

♡Buddy listen with my husband♡

My Husband’s Rating: Another 20/10 stars ☆ He asked, “Is it over?” so sadly when we finished and is asking when the next one is being released. He said it cannot end like this!

~ Redacted! Poor Murderbot is really going through a lot in this, and the audio really enhances this dilemma!
~ Never a dull second. This was full of action and drama!
~ I still strongly believe in #FreedomForAllSecunits!! My husband agrees.

My original review for the novella can be found here.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murderbot is right where it doesn’t want to be- on a planet that has a weird alien contamination, dealing with a grabby-hands corporation, and corralling humans. Fun times jumping right back in and reading the next installment in the addicting series.

System Collapse is the seventh installment in The Murderbot Diaries series. The series novellas and books are closely linked so it must be read in order for optimum understanding. No worries, it reads quickly.

The storyline is tightly connected to, Network Effect, the fifth book in the series as a continuation so it opens to a scene not days later from the conclusion of that book. Murderbot is physically recovered from that adventure and is now planet side once again acting as security for one group of the combined Preservation and University of Mihira-New Tideland team who are trying to help the colonists repair their broken or outdated equipment and, most of all, keep them from getting carted off as slave labor by the also present Barish-Estranza corporation.

Murderbot is not up to hundred percent, though. It’s experiencing the fallout from what happened to him. Even if it wasn’t needed out in the field to protect the humans with the assistance of one of ART’s bots, it has no plans to undergo a trauma treatment because that’s for humans, right? But, it’s struggling to keep it together and ART and the humans know it. It was interesting seeing it have to handle this aspect of being a bot-human construct who doesn’t like its human parts like this weird emotional weakness that is interfering with its functionality.

System Collapse is introspective through the first half and takes the time to build the pace and tension steadily to a big, satisfying climax of action. I enjoy Murderbot, or SecUnit as the others call it, as the central figure, but the surrounding cast of recurring characters are pretty sensational, too. I was glad my favorite ART was right in the thick of it. ART is the university’s powerful ship bot and SecUnit’s “don’t-call-it-friendship-grrr-or-relationship-ewww” who transferred part of itself into one of its away bots is there giving orders and niggling SecUnit. The lone Preservation member on the team is faithful Ratthi who is a trouble magnet that SecUnit is determined to keep safe. And, a new pair who SecUnit is still warming to (and it takes a long time to warm to new humans if it ever does) are ART’s university humans, Iris, who is team leader and Tarek a specialist with a surprising past.

Side note, there is a romantic skirmish for a brief moment involving Ratthi and someone that was amusing because of how riled easygoing Ratthi got.

The twists and turns building in the action to a stellar finish were all I could have wanted. Some good surprises mixed in there. Things ended at a good place to lead forward to more adventures in the series. If you’re a futuristic sci-fi fan who is open to a bot construct as the lead character, you really must read this series.

I had a good time with the Graphic Audio cast and the sound effects. This full casting added so much to an already stellar story and I liked the way the characters individual traits were brought out- particularly SecUnit and ART.

[jessenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Ken Yuen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true sequel to 5. Interestingly this was a 5 hour one, longer than the usual 3ish hours but shorter than the real long one. I wonder if we'll get an 8

[Debora Santo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This part of the story focuses on getting to a separatist colony before the big corp, so they're not made into planetary slaves. Here, ART is the one who divides its consciousness into multiple machines to maneuver with, and Murderbot gets a chance to decide whether it's worth giving a potentially dangerous construct a chance at free will and freedom. I loved the ethical and emotional impact of thatast bit.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot stress how much I love this series. I have listened to nothing but these Audiobooks One after another and Could not wait to see what happened next. Murderbot and ART are so engaging and the stories are So all encompassing that I did not miss Having no spice. The emotional development of a partial human construct...I have chills. I have not checked but I hope that This series continues and it is one hundred percent on my relistening list.

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me, a 3* is what I refer to as a good, fun, “filler” book to be read between the ones that emotionally destroy you or nonfiction that breaks your brain.

[Jeana Cheque · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was mostly action again. The humans they saved in the last book let Preservation Station know that there are more humans and they last had contact with them 20 years ago. When they arrive, it's too late. The company that owns the humans is already there, trying to get them to sign indentured service agreements. That company tells the people that Murderbot's group wants to keep them and study them. Murderbot tries to befriend the station's controlling bot unit, but it's out of date and doesn't know what's going on in the world. It helps Murderbot a little, by giving him access to cameras, etc. Art has put part of herself into a droid to help Murderbot and Rhatti and a few others who went. Murderbot decides to use his extensive media collection to put together a documentary about the lying corporation and try to convince the people to trust him and his team instead. The people watch it. I'm not sure what happens, but I think they leave in the morning like the people asked them to, along with the corporation representatives. One of the representatives ends up on Murderbot's side and they outrun the corporation and make it back to Preservation Station. During the fighting, Murderbot gives 2 SecUnits the code to override their Governor module. One of them uses it and Murderbot tries to convince it to come with them. It doesn't, but warns them they only have two minutes to escape before more reps arrive. Murderbot thinks it will stay with the corporation with its disabled Governor module, like he did for so many years before Mensah helped him.

[Nelson Minar · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK definitely time to lay off the Murderbot books. I re-read 1-4 recently and enjoyed them even more a second time. I think because the novelty of Murderbot's odd personality really shone through those first books. It's still here in the newer books but the shtick has worn thin and hasn't evolved much. If anything Murderbot is becoming more typical human which honestly isn't that interesting!

But what really doesn't work for me is it's just hard to follow the action. Wells is a good writer and structures things mostly well, but when it gets to all the people and bots moving around and stuff being blown up it's hard to follow (or care) what's happening. Just fell flat for me and was a bit tedious to finish.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not get the dramatized adaptation. Read the actual audiobook, which is excellent.

I can't leave this review on Audible because I "didn't listen to enough of the book", but that's exactly the problem. I COULDN'T listen to more of the book because I had no fucking clue who was speaking at any given time and what was going on. This version removes a LOT of the speech tags ("I said", "Dr. Mensah said" etc) and unless you have a perfect memory for voices, you won't know who's saying what. I found this extremely irritating and ended up just getting the base audiobook instead. That one, again, is excellent.

[SwissRoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a movie, in your mind! The different voice actors and sound effects make this story very enjoyable. Murderbot is consistent with its personal struggles and there is no lack of sticky situations to get out of in this latest instalment of the series.

It’s a little hard to keep track of all the different characters and which factions/groups they belong to, but maybe that’s more because I listened to the first six books at the beginning of the year and I only got to this one in December.

If you liked any of the Murderbot series, you will not be disappointed by this one.

[James Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was neither the best nor the worst installment of the Murderbot series. It seems like Murderbot has finally found a bit of peace and [redacted] with its condition. But wait. Something happened and [redacted]. We are not sure what that is, but it keeps you guessing. Most of the usual suspects are back. It's another fight (literally) with the BE Corporation to try to save some unsuspecting planetary colonists from indentured servitude. Murderbot and crew to the rescue.

More please!!

[Anya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series as a whole has been a 5⭐️ experience!

I am so sad this is the last instalment currently available. I will miss going along on Murderbots adventures but I am glad this had a conclusive feel despite ending being open to continue. I am dying to see where this series would go.

I highly recommend this series, it has great entertainment value and the dramatized audiobooks are brilliantly voiced and done!!

[Hoots · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a little biased because in my head Murderbot will always be Kevin R. Free (narrator of the audiobooks) so I was a bit (okay a lot) disappointed by Murderbot's voice. The acting is good, however, and the various actors all sound different enough to tell them apart, which is good because this book has quite a few characters.

[K D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great MB story.

I listened to all these via Hoopla and my library. It's shocking how expensive these novellas are as ebooks compared to other similar works. For example a 1000+ page Brandon Sanderson mega novel at $12.99 compared to a ~200 page novella at the same cost.

[Tatiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't wait for the next installment.

[Emma Demopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this adaption. I think it helped me understand the plot a little better and the cast of voices were well done!

[Jemima Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole series was so much fun! I'd love to hear more of Murderbot's adventures

[Rebecca Sapienza · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I did half stars it would be a 4.5. Really good but there was something (I might figure it out and I might not) missing but not enough to dock a whole star.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Low 3 star

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good series. I already want to read it again.

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was great but the new audio book format is simply terrible. The narrator gets none of Murderbots personality and reads him as a chipper guy. Hard not to turn it off.

[Katja · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Murderbot

[Raymi Slays Windmills · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.8 stars
Very enjoyable rescue mission, with a good amount of humor. A good ending to the series for me.

[Gwenyth Robicheaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favorite of the 7 Murderbot Diaries dramatized adaptations I listened to. Very suspenseful! Throughout this series, I have really enjoyed Murderbot, and especially his sarcastic wit.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit confusing getting started but very satisfying ending to Murderbot's story

[Erin Hogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last one...😢

[Kathryn Baron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of me loves a good "dramatized adaptation" - the sound effects here are particularly helpful in keeping the tension up (You can't forget there's a hostile trying to get through the door while Murderbot contemplates options when you can hear them pounding on the door) - but lost information can also be problematic. Here the last line expresses a choice - a decision Murderbot has made about the direction of their life - not with their actual words, an inquiry about future plans, but with who that inquiry is addressed to. The book has a line stating who is addressed. That information is not given in the adaptation. Which makes the ending much more open ended.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I am stuck on an alien-contaminated planet with an evil corporation trying to steal me into indentured slavery, I definitely want a Murderbot and an ART on my side. Everyone's favorite SecUnit is processing some big feelings this time around -- hopefully they get some downtime before the next entry in the series to watch some favorite episodes of Sanctuary Moon.

The full-cast audiobook was good, but I like the single-narrator version better.

[Diana T-C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done. This graphic audio book didn't have the problems of the previous graphic audio books in this series.
The production of this book is clean and professional.

The talented voice actors are wonderful and their performance isn't marred by poor editing/production.

This is an enjoyable listen - a bonus for fans of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series.