Name: BC Hark's review of Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
Item: Artificial Condition
Rating: 3
Author: BC Hark

Martha Wells

A USA Today bestseller The "I love Murderbot!" —Ann Leckie Artificial Condition is the follow-up to Martha Wells's Nebula Award-winning, New York Times bestselling All Systems Red 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...

The Murderbot Diaries

Artificial Condition

Artificial Condition is the follow-up to Martha Wells's Nebula Award-winning, New York Times bestselling All Systems Red.
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...

"Can we hug you?" Maro let go of Tapan and faced me. 

"Uh." I didn’t step back, but it must have been obvious the answer was no.

Maro nodded. "Okay. This is for you." She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed.

why am i getting sentimental about a SHIP watching tv help

anya

So we watched Worldhoppers. It didn't complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor charac- ter was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on.

Leah

Simple story but not bad, interested to see how the series will progress. 

BC Hark

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

I'm having fun with these little Murderbot novellas, they're really easy to read and they're a nice, short and quick snippet into this world and the life of Murderbot as it tries to uncover its past and make its way as a free agent, dodging other SecUnits who will turn it in for being rogue. This book follow it as it travels back to the planet where the 'murder' happened that gave it its name, and in doing so it travels on a transporter with a highly intelligent bot pilot, ART. These two form an alliance and work together to find a way to get Murderbot onto the planet so it can do research on the mining incident where it apparently went on a rampage and killed a whole lot of humans and destroyed the other bots. This was, yet again, a very straight to the point, no nonsense story, and it was really interesting but I'm still not connecting to this story like I hoped I would.

ART is really the star of this story. It is sassy and sarcastic and provided some really funny banter between the two bots as they figured out their plan. These novellas and Wells' writing have a lovely way of making you feel deeply for these bots and making them relatable. She manages to mix a good balance of humanised emotions and reactions with the very practical and logical way of thinking bots have. You can still tell they are bots and not humans, but they might as well be with the way they process interactions and try their hardest to protect and help humans. I really enjoyed all of the scenes with these two, especially when they were watching the media together and M-bot had to hand-hold ART through its emotional reactions to the series. The side quest helping the group of humans retrieve their stolen plans provided a good amount of action to keep my attention and the intrique created by trying to figure out what actually happened during the Ganaka Pit incident was fascinating and also quite heart breaking at the same time.

I enjoyed this and will definitly be carrying on with the series because these are a really accesible short reads that I can pick up in between other books. I do still find them a bit dry and one-dimensional at points, and I think they might have benefitted from being one novel with a bit more time spent on fully fleshing out some of the other characters and worldbuilding, but I am coming to realise I always feel this way about novellas and this might be a me problem. I'm definitely enjoying reading more sci-fi this year and this is a really digestable format to read this genre. I am looking forward to seeing what the TV series does with these stories, and I love that Alexander Skasgard has been cast to play Murderbot, I think he will bring the right amount of detatchment mixed with humour and emotion to this role.

Genevieve 

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

4⭐️

I'm having fun with these little Murderbot novellas, they're really easy to read and they're a nice, short and quick snippet into this world and the life of Murderbot as it tries to uncover its past and make its way as a free agent, dodging other SecUnits who will turn it in for being rogue. This book follow it as it travels back to the planet where the 'murder' happened that gave it its name, and in doing so it travels on a transporter with a highly intelligent bot pilot, ART. These two form an alliance and work together to find a way to get Murderbot onto the planet so it can do research on the mining incident where it apparently went on a rampage and killed a whole lot of humans and destroyed the other bots. This was, yet again, a very straight to the point, no nonsense story, and it was really interesting but I'm still not connecting to this story like I hoped I would.

ART is really the star of this story. It is sassy and sarcastic and provided some really funny banter between the two bots as they figured out their plan. These novellas and Wells' writing have a lovely way of making you feel deeply for these bots and making them relatable. She manages to mix a good balance of humanised emotions and reactions with the very practical and logical way of thinking bots have. You can still tell they are bots and not humans, but they might as well be with the way they process interactions and try their hardest to protect and help humans. I really enjoyed all of the scenes with these two, especially when they were watching the media together and M-bot had to hand-hold ART through its emotional reactions to the series. The side quest helping the group of humans retrieve their stolen plans provided a good amount of action to keep my attention and the intrique created by trying to figure out what actually happened during the Ganaka Pit incident was fascinating and also quite heart breaking at the same time.

I enjoyed this and will definitly be carrying on with the series because these are a really accesible short reads that I can pick up in between other books. I do still find them a bit dry and one-dimensional at points, and I think they might have benefitted from being one novel with a bit more time spent on fully fleshing out some of the other characters and worldbuilding, but I am coming to realise I always feel this way about novellas and this might be a me problem. I'm definitely enjoying reading more sci-fi this year and this is a really digestable format to read this genre. I am looking forward to seeing what the TV series does with these stories, and I love that Alexander Skasgard has been cast to play Murderbot, I think he will bring the right amount of detatchment mixed with humour and emotion to this role.

i love these books :( i wish this one spent more time with a big ol cast of characters, i know the main plot was murderbot learning about their past but i just love how well written all the characters are in this series and want to spend as much time with them all as possible. LOVE the pronoun representation in this omg

Okay I thought I’d take a break between volumes but I fear I need to find a Barnes asap.

Emily McMeans

miya

4⭐️ (slight spoilers if you haven’t read book 1)

This was a great follow up to All Systems Red, and follows Murderbot as they search for clues about a traumatic incident in their past. MB takes on a few odd jobs that go sour, uncovers a key to the past, and makes some new friends along the way! (I love ART!)

I will say I don’t think this one was good as the first book, just because it felt like less happened, but it also could be because I took a longer break in the middle of this one and forgot the first half so maybe I’ll come back to this at a later date. I love that Wells chose to dive into Murderbot’s past and use that as their driving force, while also continuing to develop MB as a character and individual separate from its role as a SecUnit.

I already have the third and fourth books downloaded and ready to go so the series is still a yes from me!!

Simi☁️

4⭐️ (slight spoilers if you haven’t read book 1)

This was a great follow up to All Systems Red, and follows Murderbot as they search for clues about a traumatic incident in their past. MB takes on a few odd jobs that go sour, uncovers a key to the past, and makes some new friends along the way! (I love ART!)

I will say I don’t think this one was good as the first book, just because it felt like less happened, but it also could be because I took a longer break in the middle of this one and forgot the first half so maybe I’ll come back to this at a later date. I love that Wells chose to dive into Murderbot’s past and use that as their driving force, while also continuing to develop MB as a character and individual separate from its role as a SecUnit.

I already have the third and fourth books downloaded and ready to go so the series is still a yes from me!!

i keep forgetting these are like novellas and i’m like wtf why do i read them so fast well cause they’re good for starters

i think i liked this one more than the first honestly

the author has to stop introducing characters i get attached to and then moving on like please let murderbot have friends that stick around!!!!

anyways onto the next

Michael Knepprath

The Murderbot Diaries is the only series I can think of that makes me want to literally laugh out loud. Snarky bots are such a delight.

Katy Watkins

Vicky  Nuñez 

Murderbot makes more friends, and is still the shyest murderebot to ever exist.

Funnier than the 1st book, loved the sidekick. 

Jenny Engel

Bethany s. 

This was even better than the first! I love ART 🥹

Laura Wilson

Denaiir

3.5 stars

The Murderbot Diaries are quickly becoming a go-to quick SF fix for me. I enjoy following Murderbot and now ART too, the pair is pretty awesome!

I love the drama binge-watching, I love the catastrophic situations the bot gets into, I love ART's quips, I love the world-building. 

I'm really flying through these, and even though this one was not as gripping I'm still very much looking forward to the 3rd.

I love this series so much. I like that this novella picked up right after the first one, and it still has everything I’d come to expect from Murderbot - funny asides, heartfelt ideals, and refreshingly honest anxiety. Low-stakes sci-fi is definitely my thing. The addition of ART was also welcome. I like that the world is growing and introducing some new characters, even if they only last for the book. Another fun and compelling story! 

Katie Allard

The second of the Murderbot Diaries, I really cannot get enough of this character and this world. 

Krys C

I had fun with this one. I am glad there is also an overarching plot but mostly I can tell Martha Wells was having a great time and that really makes all the more enjoyable. Otherwise it is not too dissimilar from the first one.

Joy Bush

More Murderbot! These novella series books are great!

In the first book, I criticised the author’s way to characterise an AI character and said it was hard to believe for me how the Murderbot felt too much like a human more than a AI. I guess I focused too much on the technical nature of it.

Now with this second I understand where the author wants to go, and why he feels so human. As we follow it, we see it learning its emotions and it’s definitely voluntary and it made me remember a short story from Exhalation by Ted Chiang. I feel like Murderbot is always learning and it’s interesting to follow. 

The intrigues are okay but like book 1 it feels like an accessory to follow Murderbot as a character.

Amira BEN

In the first book, I criticised the author’s way to characterise an AI character and said it was hard to believe for me how the Murderbot felt too much like a human more than a AI. I guess I focused too much on the technical nature of it.

Now with this second I understand where the author wants to go, and why he feels so human. As we follow it, we see it learning its emotions and it’s definitely voluntary and it made me remember a short story from Exhalation by Ted Chiang. I feel like Murderbot is always learning and it’s interesting to follow. 

The intrigues are okay but like book 1 it feels like an accessory to follow Murderbot as a character.

Up to the next 😂😭

Matthew Royal

This book flew by! Must have liked it more than I thought.

A USA Today bestseller The "I love Murderbot!" —Ann Leckie Artificial Condition is the follow-up to Martha Wells's Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award-winning, New York Times bestselling All Systems Red 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... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Gillian Rose

Another fun adventure with my new best friend Murderbot! I also very much enjoyed the introduction of ART and the two of them bonding over television. Seriously, why am I relating to these characters so much???

Midori Kobayashi

i liked this better than the first one????

Leah &
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

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Leah &Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

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Leah &
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells