Artificial Condition
by Martha Wells
Tom Doherty, 2018

Artificial Condition is a far-future science fiction novella, and the second book in The Murderbot Diaries series. The first book is All Systems Red; as this series gives no external indication as to what book fits where in the series, I accidently read Artificial Condition first. I found the book quite good, but I suspect it is best to read them in order.

Murderbot (as e refers to emself) is a security android with a problem. E's just not entirely sure what the problem is. It might be that e apparently went rogue and killed a bunch of people (e's had eir memory wiped since, but it still feels like a problem). It might be that e was bought and emancipated by a wealthy client, which somewhat derails eir previous life plans, such as they were. It might be that e ran away from eir benefactor, leaving em in an uncertain legal position. Or it might just be that most people see em as a 'murderbot', and that's not likely to change. Any way you look at it, the solution is pretty much to keep running and to distract emself by binge-watching old TV shows.

But, as long as e's running... e might as well stop by the planet where e went rogue, and see if e can pick up any clues. On the way, e meets a number of beings who are willing to help em in exchange for various services; which is good, because e needs a lot of help. It turns out that e doesn't really know how to act human, from how to breath like you're asleep during regeneration cycles, or how to tell a human that they are doing something dumb and really need to listen.

Despite Murderbot refering to emself as a murderbot, e's a very sympathetic character, and almost never murders people. The story is an interesting mix of sci-fi techno-thriller and heartwarming story of strangers coming together to help each other in an uncaring universe, à la The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The two minor downsides to the story are a bit of Deus Ex Machina in Murderbot stumbling into an unreasonably powerful partnership, and a perhaps slightly too strong dose of technobabble. Regardless, this is still a fun, short tale, likely to appeal to a wide range of science fiction fans.


The next novella in the series will be Rogue Protocol, due to come out August 7, 2018.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.