Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #2)

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jacket Blurb: It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more. Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue. What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…

A short, humorous and engaging installment in the Murderbot series.

Murderbot returns to the scene of their beginning, where they initially went rogue and killed a slew of humans. With a little help from Asshole Research Transport (ART), they become a little less SecUnit and a little more human. Not that they wanted to. To facilitate moving around the system and mining facility, Murderbot takes on a job as a security consultant for a group who thinks they are going to get their research files back after being forcibly ejected from their contract. What should be a straight forward in-out situation becomes anything but.

For a short story, this feels like a longer book. It's engaging watching Murderbot struggle with insecurities, uncertainty, decisiveness, fear, morality, guilt, boredom, sarcasm, and more - all the attributes that make a human, human.

Because this is a short story, the world building is trimmed down to the bare essentials - transports, terminals, asteroids/planets. Enough to establish setting. The strength of this gem is the character building. I'm really hoping we'll see ART again. Which means I need to read the rest of the books.

Recommended.

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