Hugo Awards". Hugo Awards. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018 . Retrieved August 20, 2018– via thehugoawards.org. But what we have at the heart of this story is, of course, the issue of personhood and interpersonal relationships. And friendship - that other dreaded f-word. “In a low voice, Ratthi commented to Overse, “Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don’t have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now.”You see, after a pretty traumatic life of being treated as nothing more than “an appliance for a team”, a dangerous weapon that can be discarded and abandoned if its human clients need to save their own hides, and being very much an introvert to begin with, Murderbot is not too comfortable with feelings and affection and emotions. Not that it does not have emotions - those are present in abundance - but MB is very uncomfortable expressing them. M-Bot is a very private person and prefers it that way. “Ratthi had said, “I think you should let it go for a while, at least until we get ourselves out of this situation. SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to discuss its feelings.” Set immediately after the end of Network Effect, System Collapse is a direct continuation of that storyline in the quest of Murderbot and a few of its favorite humans (and ART, or rather ART-drone) to rescue the abandoned colonists on the planet suffering from alien contamination from becoming indentured servants for a greedy corporation. Oh, and it’s a story of mental health struggles (but done non-didactically and non-annoyingly, which is much appreciated) and a critique of rampant capitalistic approach to life (again, somehow non-annoyingly, which quite a few authors can learn from). Ashby, Madeline; Assadi, Hannah Lillith; Baker, Calvin; Bill, Frank; Lee, Yoon Ha; Lord, Karen; McClelland, Michael Brian; Obejas, Achy; Robertson, David; Wells, Martha (2019). "Take Us to a Better Place: Stories". Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. pp.163–194. ISBN 978-1-59591-111-7 . Retrieved February 9, 2023.

Deuteragonist: As mentioned above, it's the main star of Network Effect next to Murderbot itself. However, ART does not get POV chapters. i know murderbot is ace AF, but their requisition forms for "increasingly improbable armaments" seem flirty to me in a way that is very sweet, despite all the spikes and guns involved. i'm not sure what the platonic version of flirtation is called, but whatever their relationship is, it's mutual, and they certainly understand and respect each other in a very specific and lovely way. The Corporation Rim has always been a slave state, though it calls its institutionalized slavery “contract labor.” The production of human/bot constructs is just a more horrific twist, a mental slavery as well as a physical one. At least victims of contract labor are free to think their own thoughts. But we tell ourselves that constructs aren’t aware of their predicament. What SecUnit makes us realize is that this is not true; they are all aware of what they are and what’s been done to them. But the only choice they are ever offered is obedience or pain and death.”But you're making one right now. You can't help it; it's human nature. One person with whom I am no longer friends said to me, "stop being so selfish and think of how much worse it is for my (Hispanic) people!" The Not-Love Interest: To Murderbot. She’s the only person it really feels comfortable opening up to emotionally, helping her is a major motivation for it early on, and it spends Exit Strategy rescuing her personally. Their relationship is entirely platonic. Do-Anything Robot: As the operating intelligence of a research ship, ART is quite notably a much more powerful and well-equipped AI than others, especially the much more common bot pilots seen on other ships. To the point that several human characters are confused when ART isn't a simple task unit. It becomes a plot point on more than one occasion. It also turns out to be a necessity, as "research ship" is more of a cover. I've considered constructing a killware assault, but the data I managed to retain from targetControlSystem suggests it would be ineffective...Both Ratthi

You know, if you don’t want to be manually eviscerated with your own energy weapon then maybe you shouldn’t go around killing research transports and antagonizing rogue SecUnits.)”I finally figured out that one of the reasons I love Murderbot so much is that it’s my soul-sibling. MB’s preemptive pessimism and expectation of the worst case scenario every time it is faced with a new problem is exactly my modus operandi, although I’m rather good at concealing it. “I was worried about Mensah, if everything had been okay while I was gone. I wasn’t sure exactly what “okay” would involve, but I was willing to settle for “unmurdered.”

A direct sequel to Network Effect, this volume is the second full-length in the series and the least stand-alone of them all (be advised if you were thinking of jumping in fresh here: don’t). Murderbot has faced a lot, and not just the violence of battles and betrayals but also a lot of emotional hardships as well as witnessing filthy-rich corporations commit filthy crimes with no regard for human life. And while Murderbot is slowly becoming more “human-like” and exploring the emotions it does not particularly enjoy admitting to, Murderbot is about to experience one of the most human feelings of them all: trauma.

This is one of the best entries to the Murderbot Diaries series. If you liked Network Effect, you're going to love System Collapse. This novel starts where Network Effect left off. Murderbot and the team are dealing with the fallout of their previous adventure, and discovering a new adventure (and many many problems) along the way. Takes place before Network Effect. I had to look that up, because I honestly remember little of the novellas or the novel. High time for a re-read, apparently. System update. A short interview with Martha Wells about her upcoming Murderbot novella, System Collapse". Dec 15, 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-12-22. Humans have a bad tendency to use weapons unnecessarily and indiscriminately. Of the many times I had been shot, a depressingly large percentage of hits had come from clients who were trying to "help" me.)(Another significant percentage came from clients who had just wanted to shoot something when I happened to be standing there.)

Tlacey’s ComfortUnit

If this is going to be like one of those shows with the character trapped in a strange place and then ghosts and aliens come and mess with their mind, I just can’t do that right now. But I couldn’t ignore it. I mean, I guess I couldn’t. Ignoring stuff is always an option, up until it kills you.