BookOwl

   4.5/5 stars   *Spoiler alert!* “ So the next time I get optimistic about something, I want one of you to punch me in the face.”   Good news! System Collapse is not actually the last volume in the “ Murderbot Diaries” series. It’ll be a bit of a wait; looks like the next book will come out in 2025. I’m already steeling myself, but again, t his book is not the end of Murderbot’s adventures. There is hope. Anyways, System Collapse picks up directly after the events of Network Effect , where Murderbot finds himself planet-bound—they hate planets, for understandable reasons—and having to protect their humans in the wake of a potential corporate takeover. Barish- Estranza , the corporation in question, is seeking to claim ownership of the whole planet and have all the colonists be their contracted laborers (aka slavery; see Fugitive Telemetry for more on t his ).   “Yeah, I'll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn't I thin...

   5/5 stars   *Spoiler alert!* “I had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.”   I see that there are only seven books in this series, and I’ve burned almost through them all in less than half a year. (Why am I like this?!) I love the “ Murderbot Diaries” books, and Fugitive Telemetry is no different in this regard. We return to the usual novella-length, but that doesn’t take away from it at all.   Dr. Mensah ropes in Murderbot to an investigation with a security officer they don’t like much, Indah, when a corpse is found in the Preservation Station mall. It’s unusual for Preservation, where there is very little crime, aside from largely fight-related or intoxication-related incident...