Artificial condition

If you enjoyed "All Systems Red," you'll almost certainly enjoy this as it's a direct follow-up to that story, expanding on the Murderbot character and the surrounding universe in a nicely-executed, quick, and satisfying manner.

Murderbot is a bit sassier and more overtly brash in this one, which at times during the read felt a little forced to me but I ultimately adjusted to the new tone and ended up chalking the change up to a plausible evolution of the character given the events of the first book.

The story is fairly simple and straightforward, which leaves plenty of room for the additional world building and character development that I'd say are the bread and butter of the experience. I particularly enjoyed Murderbot's interactions with ART as they did a lot to check both of those boxes in a fun and novel way.

If you got your fill of Murderbot from "All Systems Red," I don't think there's much in "Artificial Condition" that you'll miss experiencing but if you enjoy the character and the universe, and are looking for more of both, this is certainly a worthy sequel worth exploring that will likely leave you itching for the next volume in the series.

I was reading parts 1 (All Systems Red) and 2 (Artificial condition) of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Here is what I wrote about it: denkpass.de/2023/04/05/Reading-Murderbot-diaries-by-Martha-Wells.html

Two passages:

What’s funny is that these AIs are supposedly superintelligent, yet they behave like small kids. This is what makes them also human or relatable in my eyes. But would artificial intelligences even pay attention to humans? We’ll see why the murderbot (and the ship AI) do, but this is almost all that makes me read these books (or Iain Banks’ Culture series, which is also heavy on AI, or Anne Leckies Radj series): because the AIs want to understand humans, they observe them so much. And find out something that we humans don’t observe consciously (but most of the time subconsciously).

Martha Wells was aware of this human centred storytelling with often the only reason being that we human readers are so much interested in ourselves, not actually in any artifical intelligences. We want the AIs to focus on us, because we only focus on us as well.

4.5 stars for this one. I enjoyed it way more than the first one, though it nicely continues Murderbot's story. Murderbot has a hacked governor module, so is basically one of the dreaded rogues only known in media. It hacked it after a massacre in a mining pit on some moon. But Murderbot barely remembers anything about it, so instead of staying with the crew that adopted it, it runs off to travel to the mining moon to find out what happened.

On the way she 'befriends' ART, an asshole transport ship, and finds new humans to protect. Of course everything goes terribly wrong, and Murderbot has to do what it's great at: murdering.

Seriously, I enjoyed just about anything here. ART was great, the story about the surveyors wanting their data back was exciting, and it even included a non-binary character, and diverse relationships. Bring it on, modern science fiction, bring it on.