Book review: Artificial Condition

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

Please note that this is a sequel and you might get spoiled if you keep reading further and haven’t read the first book yet. My review for the first book can be found here.

Description: (from Macmillan)

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…

Expected publication: May 8th 2018.
A review copy (eARC) of this book was provided by the publisher. Some things might change in the final copy.

ALL the stars. I already loved All Systems Red so I went into this quite confident that I would have a good time and wow did it deliver!

Murderbot travels a bit, which lets us take a wider look at the world this is set on and also lets it discover it all. It meets new humans but the main relationship explored in this instalment is between Murderbot and ART, a transport ship. I loved how they interacted and the quality time they shared watching medias might have been the highlights of this story for me.
I loved that this sequel explored both new corners of this world and new ways to be sentient for artificial intelligences. The initial crew from All Systems Red isn’t present in Artificial Condition, though they are present in Murderbot’s thoughts, and some new young humans cross path with it. Its big not-that-uncaring heart will of course act up and lead it in some trouble. But most of all, Murderbot is looking for answers about its past, troubled by the incident leading it to name itself that way.

“But there weren’t any depictions of SecUnits in books, either. I guess you can’t tell a story from the point of view of something that you don’t think has a point of view.”

The social anxiety and extreme awkwardness of Murderbot, its yearning for answers and fear of hurting people around it, its deep sense of protectiveness and pride in its abilities make Murderbot a very human protagonist despite its insistance on not being 100% a human. This is a big theme explored here, how being a person maybe isn’t that easy to pinpoint.

“Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.”

This sequel made me both laugh out loud and crushed my heart, made me yell “RELATABLE” even more often than the first book. This is a very strong novella that manages to juggle character development, action, humour, violence and sweet scenes : the Murderbot Diaries is definitely one of my new favourite series.
I am now even more looking forward to read Rogue Protocol, out in August!

“I felt this would be the point where a human would sigh, so I sighed.”

Note that this sequel will be released in hardcover unlike the first book. I’m crossing my fingers something will be done so that the whole series can match on our shelves!