Murderbot Rules. Waiting for its next adventures. A review will be coming talking about all its stories.

Murderbot è tornato. E ha un amico.
Cosa potrebbe andare storto?

Un'altra avventura piena di intelligenza a ironia - e del mio amore per il puccioserrimo protagonista. ❤️

I don’t normally review books in the middle of the series, but I need you all to know about Murderbot, so I’m here today to review Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, the second book in The Murderbot Chronicles.


All Systems Red, the first Murderbot book, was showing up in my recommendations for a long time before I actually read it. I took one look at the title and subtitle and assumed it was some sort of ridiculous robot apocalypse or AI-driven military fiction book. Not for me, I thought. Until I read a review somewhere and realized it was actually 100% for me.

Murderbot is a SecUnit, part biological, part machine, engineered to serve as security on contracts. Prior to the events of the series, something went horribly wrong and Murderbot killed the people they were contracted to protect. Now Murderbot has a hacked governor module, free-will, and an addiction to serial entertainments.

A couple notes: Murderbot is a genderless construct. I’m using “they” pronouns, although there’s no stated preference and they might even identify as an “it”, especially earlier in the series. Also, Murderbot is the name they gave themselves, and how they refer to themselves in their inner monolog.

Possessed of free will, Murderbot now also suffers from a lot of the same weaknesses we humans have, namely a certain amount of depression and anxiety, and major cases of the “I don’t wannas.” They still feel a certain drive to protect people, but also a lot of anxiety about potentially failing and killing people again. They also don’t really know how to interact with humans, and would rather be left alone to watch their favorite shows.

Artificial Condition picks up shortly after the events of the first book, and features Murderbot looking for answers about the massacre they were part of. They feel like they need to understand their past before they can move forward with the future.

Unfortunately, they can’t just go back to the moon where it all took place, as you can only go there with a work permit. So they end up posing as an augmented human security agent and taking a freelance job protecting a rag-tag group of young scientists who are trying to retrieve some stolen data.

Along the way, Murderbot has to learn how to navigate acting like a human, and how to handle the fact that they don’t have to directly follow orders anymore. How do they balance their own goals, what their employer has asked for, and what will actually keep the scientists safe.

Oh also there’s a powerful ship AI named ART who sort of takes Murderbot on as a project out of boredom, and provides a lot of unasked-for advice.

I love these books for Murderbot’s dry, self-depreciating narrative style. This is a series of novellas, so you don’t get a ton of complicated plot or world building. You’ve got your generic “humans have expanded to space and are mining it for resources” sci-fi setting, and it feels like the author has a good grasp of their universe but doesn’t want to spend a lot of time telling us about it. Similarly, the secondary characters feel like well-rounded people but we really only see them through Murderbot’s lens. The main focus here is the narrator’s journey, and it feels like each book will advance the meta-plot until Murderbot reaches some sort of conclusion at the end.

My main complaint is the price point. This is often my complaint with novellas. It’s hard for me to justify spending $9.99 on such a short ebook, just because the publisher has opted to put out a hardcover edition. I often end up waiting for novellas to go on sale, because it’s frustrating to spend the same amount for a 150ish page book as I would for a 400 page book, you know?

That said, these books are well worth reading. If you can’t justify the cover price (print or digital), consider requesting them at your local library, which still helps out the publisher and author and makes them available to others in your community after you’ve finished reading them.

Thank you to Tor.com and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC for review purposes and giving me the chance to follow Murderbot’s continuing adventures.

Pros: Unique narrator, fun sci-fi adventures

Cons: Novella length can make the story feel rushed.

Conclusion: If you enjoy works that take a look at the ethics and philosophy of AI and engineered life forms, but don’t take themselves too seriously, this will be your cup of tea.

Artificial Condition picks up where All Systems Red leaves off, and it's just as awesome this time around to accompany Murderbot on its quest for the truth about its own past. Murderbot's partnership with ART starts off with annoyance, but before long they're watching the serials together on their feeds and doing some truly masterful hacking of pretty much every security system they find.

Murderbot gets the answers it's looking for, and meanwhile gets involved with yet another group of vulnerable humans who desperately need its protection. Of course, it can't help feeling responsible for them, and takes care of them and resolves their crisis in the most Murderbot-ish way possible.

A self-aware, self-determining robot with a sense of humor and an unquenchable thirst for watching TV will never get old for me. The Murderbot books are a blast. Can't wait for #3, coming in August.

Artificial Condition is the second book in the Murderbot Diaries, and man was it worth the wait! Murderbot is the nickname our main character has given itself, which is both humorous and a little sad. Murderbot is actually a SecUnit (Security Unit) that gets sent out on mining and scientific missions as human and resource protections. Our lovely SecUnit has found a way to free themselves from the system, but the question is, how long can they remain so?
I knew right away I was going to like this series, even before I read the first book. So far, it hasn’t disappointed me (and I don’t think it will). I love Murderbot and the very strange and clever ways they handle all sorts of situations; from social interactions (hint: awkwardly) to threatening ones, and everything in between.
Artificial Condition felt a bit more cerebral than All Systems Red did. Which makes sense. All Systems Red had to establish the world, the characters, and the situation Murderbot was in, as well as explaining what made Murderbot unique from the rest of the SecUnits. Artificial Condition didn’t have to do any of that. Instead we got to focus entirely on Muderbot’s personality and personal quests. In this case, Murderbot is determined to find out what happened to it in the past.
You see, Murderbot knows that it went rogue and killed a bunch of humans. While its memory had been wiped, the organic parts will still maintain a fractured idea of the whole, so there’s still some truth left. They also know (obviously) that they’ve successfully hacked themselves. What they don’t know is which order these events occurred in. Did they hack themselves to go rogue (and thus kill all of those humans), or did they hack themselves after, in order to save that from happening again? I love the question this raises; it’s an interesting puzzle, to say the least.
I love the little details that went into this novel. Such as how Murderbot traveled, interacted with other bots and humans, and how they figured things out as they went. It all showed us a lot about how Murderbot handles different problems and in many ways it made the character seem so much more human than they’d like us to consider them.
Murderbot is such an interesting character study. At what point, exactly, can we say a person or being achieves sentience? Martha Wells explores this subject without ever having to be so blunt as to actually say those words out loud. Is Murderbot a sentient being? Is the fact that they hacked themselves, thus freeing themselves, a signifier of an autonomous being? What about their joy of media (trashy television shows, mostly)? They have likes, loves, dislikes, and even a nice array of social and mental anxieties. Is that enough? Or is it more? Is it how they treat humans? Because humans aren’t always kind to each other, I mean look at the events of the last book for crying out loud. In short, I love the million questions this series raises just by existing.
Both novels have been relatively short, and yet I can’t say enough good things about them. I’m already counting down the days for the release of Rogue Protocol, and sincerely hope the date doesn’t get changed or put back (that’d just be my luck!). I know the fourth book has already gotten a title (Exit Strategy, for those that are curious), but I actually hope the series continues beyond that point as well.

With the bribe of shared entertainment, Murderbot hops a ride with a AI research ship to the mining planet where they once worked and the site of a massacre. The ship and Murderbot slowly get to know one another over shared viewing of the entertainment and ARC helps Murderbot figure out a plan when they get down to the surface. They pick up a short-term security contract from some humans trying to get data from a former employer to cover their reasons for being on the surface. They do find out what really happened at the mining pit and what caused it.

Can’t wait for the next part of this story since I did leave out some really good parts for this review.

A welcome return to the snarky, soap opera obsessed wonder that is Murderbot! This novel follows on directly from All Systems Red and sees Murderbot trying to find information about what happened on the mining colony before she went rogue. Once again, Wells has pitched the tone of Murderbot just right. I love the concerns it displays about over-reacting or reacting at all and the nuance of imitating a human. This novel focuses far more on the plight of bots and we are introduced to two new iterations - ART, a sarcastic research transport and a sexbot who wants to be free. I particularly enjoyed the conversations between the bots and found their interactions amusing and poignant in places. There is also a plot involving some humans to protect, which moves along at a good pace, but it felt a little secondary somehow when compared to the bot interactions. All in all, this is an enjoyable space adventure and I look forward to seeing where the series will go in future instalments.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Yay! More Murderbot! My one quibble so far is really that both books have had Murderbot meet up with other people, we learn just enough about them to be invested, and then they end up parting ways. I want more of ART, particularly; I want more of the team that Murderbot protected in the first book -- gaah, just have everyone come together and have adventures already!

Nonetheless, I enjoyed Murderbot's interactions with ART a lot, and I'm very curious about ART's crew as well. I loved them basically doing Netflix and chill together, and I loved ART's bossy but well-meaning way of trying to help Murderbot -- and especially ART's understanding of the things that Murderbot isn't ready to articulate or face, and the way ART pushes Murderbot to look more human, act more human, blend into the background more...

I also enjoyed getting to know a tiny bit more about Murderbot's past. I'm going to guess there'll be more about that and the ComfortUnits later on; I'm intrigued to get wherever this is going. I just hope ART is there too! And some time for ART and Murderbot to sit down and watch some Worldhoppers or Sanctuary Moon together. <3

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells is the second novella in the Murderbot Diaries series. I previously read, reviewed and loved the first novella, All Systems Red. I do generally recommend reading the first book before starting Artificial Condition, although Artificial Condition does a good job of reminding the reader what happened in the previous book.

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…

In this instalment, we follow Murderbot as it makes its way to the site of a severe malfunction that caused it to kill a bunch of people and after which its memory was wiped. On the way it makes a friend — who is also awesome and I hope we get to read about again — and finds some humans to temporarily guard. Also, the overarching plot thickens (but no spoilers).

I loved this book! After a stressful few weeks, getting back into Muderbot's head was exactly what I needed to relax and make me laugh. I love Murderbot. I love the voice and the sarcasm and the way it understands humans better by watching endless entertainment dramas than interacting with them directly. I also liked the different perspective on humans that we got from ART and Muderbot's take on ART's different taste in dramas. Everything I loved from the first book appears again in this one, including the exasperation at humans doing stupid things likely to get them killed.

This series is gold and if you don't hate non-human sentients they why aren't you reading it already? Hands down this is one of my favourite series ever and I foresee myself rereading it several times. (But for now I'm going to wait until all four novellas are out before I start re-reading — that way lies sadness at having to wait for future books.) I cannot wait until the next book, Rogue Protocol, comes out (due August).

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2018, Tor.com
Series: The Murderbot Diaries book 2 of 4
Format read: ePub
Source: ARC from publisher via NetGalley with my official iBooks preorder hot on its heals. I read the purchased copy since it had the cover.

MURDERBOT <3 <3 <3

I'm so glad that All Systems Red got a sequel (and more to come!) because Murderbot is my favorite kind of character: super-competent, grumpy, and secretly a marshmallow. (If you loved Justice of Toren from Ancillary Justice, you will also love Murderbot.) This installment in the life of Murderbot introduces a new friend: the Asshole Research Transport (ART for short), who provides a great deal of material assistance and also gets into Sanctuary Moon while Murderbot investigates what really happened in the murderbot-gone-rogue incident and looks after the new batch of idiot scientists that they've somehow become responsible for. It's a fast read and deeply satisfying.

This is easily one of the books I was most excited for this year (others that come close are the next two in the series, also due out 2018!)

Murderbot is a Security Unit calibrated and equipped to be the ultimate security guard, easily able to protect several people at a time. Usually called a SecUnit, our favourite calls itself Murderbot possibly because of an event that happened before the first novella, and the reason why it hacked its governance module (that also happens to have the nice added benefit of allowing it to download and watch terrabytes of trashy television).

On a previous mission well before the first novella, something went wrong and Murderbot killed fifty-seven members of a mining project. It was wiped (though not very well), installed with a new module (which it immediately hacked in the mindset not to allow the malfunction to ever happen again), and was sent out on another mission. Like the one we saw in All Systems Red. When that crew found out about its past they were understandably nervous, however its handled well and interestingly throughout – which is why I was so excited for this next instalment.

As a quick reminder, in the previous book we see that Murderbot is freed by Dr Mensah and offered save haven for the rest of its days, but unable to be happy with that Murderbot instead sets out to find out what really happened in that mining facility. With the ability to delete video footage and ‘encourage’ mechanical gateways on space stations and onto transport ships and the like, Murderbot finds an empty transport vessel going its way and starts the journey… again, running into more trouble than it bargained for.

What I love in this is how much sentience we see throughout. The empty transport ship becomes Murderbot’s heavily relied upon companion, and we see more of the sexbots (ComfortUnits) in this. The dry wit and the ability of sentient technology will always be endlessly fascinating, and though we may not see any of the original crew from the first novella we get even better characters in this one.

What I also love is that we get the answers Murderbot went there for, and they weren’t as one would usually expect (especially when there’s so few pages to work from). It’s not overly drawn out – once Murderbot gets there it methodically goes about what it has to do. It must be so hard as a writer to find things that can go wrong that don’t affect the cyborg’s efficiency as that just wouldn’t be believable. High five, Wells!

I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

What a treat!
I've read the first book of "The Murderbot Diaries", "All Systems Red", quite recently and was very excited at the idea of reading the sequels, as this first nevella has been a perfect read for me. I loved the real science-fi vibe, the humanity of the story, with true people, ordinary people - except for the narrator, an artificial person, a security robot, or a murderbot.
I've always been fascinated by intelligence non human in fiction: demons, dragons, robots... I love the scenaristic complexities offered by this kind of character, the way it makes the reader ponder about identity and humanity. In "The Murderbot Diaries" series some "bots", made with human DNA and a lot a technology (a mix between android and cyborg) as used as slaves, paying no heed to the fact that they're clearly as aware as humans. My very old sense of indignation towards any form of injustice was immediately awake and ready to approve all the author efforts to solve this unbearable situation. I read on and was charmed...

The hero(ine) of this series (whom we'll call Bootie, to make it simple) is a very likeable person, with an endearing personality, very reserved and even shy, but with a delicious dry sense of humour. By nature Botie feels the need to help humans, but not any human: their intelligence helps them to see how people really are, and since the first book, Bootie's tribulations,  around some mysteries, were riveting and made a very pleasurable read.

I particularly appreciate how this kind of exposing of a non human character helps understand some particular human personalities, who are able to like and love other humans but bear contact with difficulties and much prefer to have indirect interactions with other humans: they're not abnormal and cold, just different and sensitive, and need to be accepted with their differences.

But to come back to this second novella, "Artificial Condition".
If you've loved the first episode, you're sure to love this one too. The story is very linear, beginning just after the end of "All Systems Red". If you don't remember very precisely this first story, and have chosen not to read it again before, don't worry, the author gives some tips to help the reader. And if you were sorry to see Bootie run away, you'll see that she doesn't forget her crew!
I won't tell much about this new story, as I don't want to spoil anybody, but I can just say that Bootie's gaining a rather Hermionish sidekick, and manages to learn from their personal history. It was a delicious read, entertaining, sweet and fun!

I'm looking forward reading the next novella in the series, "Rogue Protocol" (August 2018), and the next, "Exit Strategy" (october 2018) - which seems to be the last, a shame, I would have love dozen of murderbot diaries...

I recommend this book in particular, and "The Murderbot diaries" in general, to all science-fi readers (and even more) who love a solid context and strong characters development, with no clichés and some dry humor.

Lovers of  Ann Leckie's Ancillary books will love this series, and also, for instance, enthusiast readers of Lois McBujold's Penrin § Desdemona's novellas.

There’s action here though not as much as in “All Systems Red.” Murderbot does its thing again protecting those it takes a contract with but there’s a new slant. Murderbot is not just doing what it’s contracted to do and losing itself reruns of Sanctuary Moon. This time it’s thinking about who and what it is and making its own plans. It’s studying and improving its ways of passing as human as it seeks answers to its past. It also realizes that it can’t sink back into the ennui that it floated through life on before. If I was going to follow my plan, such as it was, I needed to care.

Murderbot still gets twitchy about humans getting into its space and finds them deeply, deeply weird and frustrating at times – they just will keep doing idiotic or homicidal things. Murderbot gets to practice its annoyed sighs and eye rolling. It also discovers information at the moon site that opens new questions. And in trying to act more like humans and pass for (at least an augmented) human, Murderbot has to face humans wanting to treat it like a person, talk to it – about its feelings or worse – hug it. It will have to shift from enjoying watching humans in serial entertainment and move to interacting with them. It will also have to ponder some things it realizes about itself and decide whether to go ahead with its plan. Maybe it will follow ART’s suggestion. Be careful. Find your crew. I’m already anticipating the next installment. B+

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

These Murderbot Diaries are quickly becoming a go-to popcorn SF read for me. I love killer robots as much as the next bloke, but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for this one.

It's not just the hundreds of hours this mass-murder-capable robot pours into his/her SF soap opera binge-watching time. It's not the kinds of situations that make it need to pretend to be human among all the myriad prejudices AGAINST mass-murder-capable robots.

It's the candid conversations with pissed-off robot carriers.

I kinda agree with these two. Murdering all the humans would truly make their lives much simpler. But then again, I suppose that could be said about all of us.

Good worldbuilding! I'm really flying through each one of these like it was popcorn. :)

Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings. While I try to post no spoilers, if ye haven’t read the first book then ye might want to skip this post. If ye keep reading this log then ye have been forewarned and continue at yer own peril . . .

artificial condition (Martha Wells)
Title: artificial condition
Author: Martha Wells
Publisher: Macmillian-Tor/Forge
Publication Date: Tomorrow!! (hardback/ebook)
ISBN: 978-1250186928
Source: NetGalley

I love the Murderbot! I thought the first novella was basically perfect and deserves its spot on the 2018 Best Novella Hugo Award nomination list. Then I read this one and loved it just as much. In this second volume the Murderbot is on its own and has a self-appointed mission to try and solve a mystery in its past. To accomplish this, Murderbot hitches a ride on a research vessel to a mining planet. The transport ship turns out to be more than Murderbot bargained for! I adored the relationship between the two and found it to be the highlight of this installment. I don't want to get into too many details because it is better for the reader to savour on their own. Read about the Murderbot and fall in love.

Side note: There be two more novellas scheduled in the series - one coming out in August and the other in October. I need them now!!

Also check out this interview with Martha Wells by me own crew member Sarah @ theillustratedpage! Arrr!!

The author's website has this to say about the novella:

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...

To visit the author's website go to:
Martha Wells - Author

To buy the book go to:
artificial condition - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:
Yer Ports for Plunder List

Previous Log Entries for this Author
all systems red (Captain’s Log – Sci-Fi)

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on 05/11]

Artificial Condition is the second novella in the sci-fi series The Murderbot Diaries. I really liked the first book, All Systems Red, and I loved this one even more.
I think this series is an underrated gem. It’s about what it means to be (or not to be) human, it’s diverse, there’s no romance, it has trans-inclusive worldbuilding (a non-binary character who uses te/ter pronouns is introduced in this book; there are mentions of space societies with more than two genders), and it avoids or subverts many tropes common in tired AI narratives.
But what makes me truly love this series is the humor – these books are hilarious.

The narration is what makes this series worth reading. It’s about a SecUnit – a security bot who calls itself Murderbot – who is now pretending to be human to discover more about its past, but it has anxiety. An anxious, shy, murderous bot. I love it.
The human characters are never really developed in this series – the way many AI characters usually aren’t that developed in series from the humans’ PoV; it makes sense to me. Murderbot also tries its best not to get attached to humans (and fails. Oh, the denial). But Murderbot is a very well-rounded characters, and in Artificial Condition another AI is introduced, one who is, basically, a Rude Spaceship. Murderbot named it ART, which stands for asshole research transport, and I can say that a) as a name, it’s perfect and b) I loved the Rude Spaceship a lot.

The only thing I didn’t completely love was the worldbuilding: it’s very vague and I would have liked more details and less names thrown around, but it’s a novella and I don’t have a problem when some aspects of a novella are less developed to give space to the actual story. And since the story is great, I don’t have anything against this choice.

I can’t wait to get more of this.

I’ve been a fan of Martha Wells ever since I bought a paperback copy of her debut novel way back when. Her work always features wonderful worldbuilding and unique characters, and her Murderbot series is no exception.

The narrator of the series is a SecUnit, a biomechanical construct of cloned human tissue and machinery. SecUnits are considered property and hired out to provide security. However, this unit has hacked the governor that forced it to obey human commands. Freed from company control, it travels to the location of the tragedy that caused the unit to start calling itself a “murderbot”—its slaughter of dozens of humans on what should have been a routine mission. Was faulty programming the cause, or did it actually hack its governor intentionally to kill the humans it was supposed to protect?

Wells does a terrific job writing a character who is emphatically not human but at the same time very much a person. Not that the unit itself would be comfortable calling itself a person—it’s much more used to being treated like an unthinking machine. It avidly consumes human entertainment (including a very soapy-sounding show called Sanctuary Moon, which seems to be comfort viewing) and responds emotionally as a legacy of its human brain. At the same time, it sees itself as a thing, a generally uncaring and potentially dangerous thing, and is extremely uncomfortable when humans want to interact with it directly in anything other than the most businesslike way. However, its actions in choosing to continue to help the humans around it even though it doesn’t have to do so demonstrates that it is in fact a caring, moral being. The series seems to be taking the murderbot on a journey from property to true personhood, I think.

That all probably makes this novella sound a bit serious, but it’s really very entertaining. The murderbot’s observations of its world are often quite funny. (Well, maybe the humans around it wouldn’t always think so.) And because its function is to provide security, there’s plenty of action, too.

Two more Murderbot novellas are coming out this year, and I can’t wait to read them! I’d highly recommend this series for anyone who enjoys well-written science fiction.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.