Artificial Condition
Ratings1,076
Average rating4.2
Great read
Good story. Nice and tight with no fluff. Perfect blend of humor, drama and action. The story never got boring and I found myself wanting more at the end. Thankfully there's more books to read!
To me, there's different levels of one star ratings. There's the ‘I hate everything about this book and want to burn it with fire' one stars and then there's the ‘I can objectively see why other people liked it but it just very much isn't for me' one stars. This is the second one.
I could sort of, almost not mind the first book because there was enough interesting stuff going on and enough secondary characters that I liked. This book spends so long setting up the story, focusing on Murderbot's existential crisis that I had completely lost interest in this short novella before I even reached the halfway point.
I continued reading because I told myself to, because I was forcing myself to give this series a real, decent chance. (And I think after reading three hundred unenjoyable pages, that I am well within my rights to say this is not a series for me.)
To be blunt, I don't like Murderbot and, pun intended, they killed the series for me. To focus so exclusively on one character and literally no one else, I have to like the character. (I don't have to relate to them.) Murderbot is misanthropic, with a heavy dose of surly and capped off with laziness. Relatable, yes. Enjoyable to read about, no.
Action, excitement, mystery, artificial intelligence, and space travel. What more could you want?
This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Artificial Condition
Murderbot is determined to find out the truth about its past. It's heard about the horrific tales of a mining massacre but thanks to the company wiping its memory, can't remember what happened that day. Was the mining incident an accident, or did it want to kill all those humans? Posing as an augmented human, Murderbot takes on a security job for a group of researchers in order to reach the mines. But helping them claim their stolen research isn't going to be easy. And as Murderbot searches for answers in the mines, it will discover a lot more than it's past.
Artificial Condition picks up right where the previous novel left off. Murderbot is trying to pass for an augmented human while it plans a route to the mines. Along the way, it encounters a sentient transport bot that it deems ART. If you thought All Systems Red was hilarious, wait until you read about ART and Murderbot trying to figure out humans. Between Murderbot's knowledge from watching TV and ART's ability to run searches and compound data quickly, they help each other understand human social cues and body language.
The evolution of Murderbot as a character is so clever. Bit by bit Murderbot's outlook of the world and those within it is expanding. And it's not only humans it's learning about, but other AI as well. Murderbot is guilty of putting AIs into categories based on type, even though it's a unique individual. Of course, that is until ART comes along and rewrites how Murderbot views its own kind.
An introvert after my own heart, Murderbot is a character I cannot get enough of. I am eager to see how else Murderbot will evolve as the series progresses. If you haven't tried the Murderbot Diaries yet give them a try. They are fast-paced sci-fi reads that are filled with action, sarcastic humor, and great storylines.
We learned more about the murderbots origin and some new abilities.
His new friend, the spaceship is funny and interesting.
If you liked the first one, you will probably like this one.
I was invested in this one until we got to RaviHyral. Even there it was good until MurderBot went off on his own. But I'm glad I finished it. I'm moving on to the next one.
Another excellent addition to the Murderbot series. I never realised that I would have quite such a sentimental attachment to an AI built for killing and a transport ship!
Construct and bot just hanging out, talking about TV and their jobs? Just put this directly into my veins, this shit is the best.
Dus, Murderbot noemt zichzelf Murderbot onder meer omdat weet dat hij ooit een hele hoop mensen dood heeft gemaakt die hij eigenlijk had moeten beschermen. Na die gebeurtenis is zijn geheugen gewist (maar niet helemaal, omdat een deel van zijn geheugen organisch is en niet echt wisbaar). Een tijd daarna heeft hij zijn governor module gehackt, waardoor hij niet meer gecontroleerd kan worden door het bedrijf dat zijn eigenaar is.
Op het einde van het vorige boek is hij eigendom geworden van het hoofd van een regering van een plaats waar intelligente andoïden zoals hij ook rechten hebben. Beperkte rechten, want ze hebben nog altijd een eigenaar, maar toch.
Murderbot kiest er meteen voor om niét mee te gaan met zijn nieuwe vrienden, maar terug te keren naar de plaats waar hij al die mensen had gedood, om er het fijne van te weten te komen.
Hij vraagt aan een leeg schip dat naar daar gaat of hij eventueel mee zou mogen gaan, en schets zijn verbazing als blijkt dat het een écht intelligent schip is. Gelijk, niet zomaar een schip met een bot aan het stuur, maar een serieus intelligent schip, grootteordes slimmer dan hem. Het schip, dat hij ART doopt (voor Asshole Research Transport), is een fijne mengeling van enorm intelligent maar ook nul ervaring in het echte leven, en het is serieus grappig en ontroerend hoe het schip leert omgaan met menselijke emoties door samen met Murderbot naar soaps te kijken.
Niet dat Murderbot zelf vreselijk goed is met menselijke emoties of zo, daar niet van.
Ook dit boek was eigenlijk maar een degelijke tv-aflevering lang, ook dit verhaal was uitstekend.
De auteur doet ook helemaal niet alsof het een alleenstaand boek is: het begint meteen na het einde van het eerste boek, en het eindigt met het derde boek helemaal in het vizier.
ART! I adore Art and am so glad we got more lovable characters. It is interesting to see how MurderBot changes and grows and also improves. What hit me harder during the second read is just how abused MurderBot was and how it affects them. It hits hard and hearing about their trauma and how they think now and are trying to move past it in order to deal with beings adds so much more to everything going on.
I had a lot of issues with the first book (lack of originality, lame plot, lack of proper scifi-ness) but they were offset by the great humor and excellently done MC, so I still loved it. This time, all these lacks are still here, and all even lamer/more unoriginal, but I also got bored and the humor is in way less quantity. Plus the MC hacking everything every few pages is really unplausible and rather ridiculous. Plus the psychology is replaced with very basic philosophy and that was uninteresting too. Will not read the rest of the series and cannot recommend. Martha Wells may have good humor and excellent EQ, but a scifi writer should definitely also have imagination and stories - one book lacking them I could understand, but a second one is too much for my money (and time).
Murderbot is the best kind of friend. Knows your weaknesses, impressed by your strengths, always there for you despite the hassle.
I liked this a little better than the first book in the series, [b:All Systems Red 32758901 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) Martha Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1484171189l/32758901.SY75.jpg 53349516], primarily for the snarky interactions between Murderbot and ART, but once again the sci-fi plot didn't engage me. This series will go under the “books/authors/series others love but you just don't get” category.
Young humans can be impulsive. The trick is to keep them around long enough to become old humans.
Not one, but two sarcastic AIs trying to keep suicidal humans alive, all that I needed today!
This is the second in the Murderbot Diaries. All Systems Red is the first one and on the strength of that one, I decided I needed to read the whole series. (So far they're pretty short, about 150 pages each, but I understand the fifth one will be full length.) In this one, Murderbot takes on a consulting job as a way to view the scene where the original atrocity happened that inspired it to name itself Murderbot. Zipped through this in two days.
I accidentally read the third book before the second. Murderbots recollection of Art made me go back. I definitely enjoyed this one a but more. In excited to see where Murderbot goes from here.
Did Murderbot just make a... friend? In as much as it can, wants or cares to.
Our anxious misanthrope of a free bot seeks out answers as to what happened to make it become Murderbot in this 2nd instalment of the series. Everything you loved about Mb in the first novella is still there now with added... hair? Thrown into the mix this time around is ART, the Asshole Research Transport Mb meets on the way to finding answers.
Once again this is a brilliantly witty and well-written story by Wells, told in a diarised style (hence the series name) from the point of view of the eponymous Murderbot. The experiences with social anxiety are cleverly done and accurate. There's not too much ‘hard science' involved in these books so if you're not a fan of that in your sci-fi then these books are definitely worth a gander. They're short, quick reads that are immense fun.
After multiple rounds of abandoning my intended to-read, I decided that the only way to get to COVID was to read like I was a teenager again: back-to-back science fiction and fantasy, preferably in serial form. Good news: in the two decades that have passed, spec fic has gotten super high-brow. Murderbot carried me through all of July. In this, second outing, despite it's best intentions, Murderbot keeps making friends. ART, arguably Murderbot's best friend, is my favorite character. Fresh off of its first human friendships (and unwilling to acknowledge them as such), Murderbot needs another bot to be friends with. And ART is not human, although charmingly a bit arrogant, and definitely more than a bit pedantic, ART is a beautiful foil to the sardonic and asocial Murderbot.
The second book in the series spools out some of the backstory hinted at in the first, but the central focus is exploring what makes a bot itself and not just any generic construct. I loved this: I think it had a lot to say about people, growth and relationships.
This is the second novella following the Security Unit that wryly calls itself Murderbot (it doesn't actually want to hurt humans - humans are useful, they make TV shows). I thought the character and the storytelling in the first story was really good, I just felt that the ending was poorly paced. In this second story the character and storytelling is even tighter, the jokes are funnier and the world building is really well done.
A really good short read.