Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries (Murderbot Diaries, #2)

by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition continues The Murderbot Diaries, a science fiction series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

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.

• ISBN10: 1250186927
• ISBN13: 9781250186928
• Publish Date: 8 May 2018 (first published 30 January 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 2 July 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 160
• Language: English

Reviews

[nora]

The part where Murderbot finds out there's a comfort unit just standing outside their door, and the comfort unit suggests they kill all humans WAS SO CREEPY I PEED A LITTLE
Great book.

[celinenyx]

As a sequel to All Systems Red, Artificial Condition works quite well. I love Murderbot's journey into their past, and the plot feels like a logical next step. This novella felt less focused, however, and didn't give the same satisfying emotional arc as the first one. It perhaps tried to introduce too many characters in one go. It's still great fun though, and I look forward to Murderbot's further adventures.

[leahrosereads]

I thought this was a tad slower than All Systems Red and didn't like the secondary characters as much, but I absolutely LOVE Murderbot!

[inlibrisveritas]

Book 2 for the #readathon

Murderbot is the best and I adore ART just as much. It's unreal how relatable these two are. All the sarcasm, eye-rolling, and social anxieties are just soo...me. Not to mention the fact that like Murderbot I forget to react to people when they are talking to me or I don't have the same emotional response that they do, which makes them upset and it's a whole thing...*shrugs* 10 years ago I would be worried as to why I relate so much to an AI instead of 98% of the other characters I read about,
these days it's kind of a relief.
Martha Wells does such a good job of pacing out the mystery of Murderbot's 'awakening' and their slow understanding of what it means to be an individual in a universe where it's dangerous for an AI to come anywhere close. We get the added bonus of an unusual friendship with a bot nicknamed (by Murderbot) ART that just works on so many levels.

I really can't wait to dive into the third installment.

[smartflutist661]

Murderbot and ART are more relatable than many (fully) human characters. This felt more like Book 1, Part 2 than a separate novella, though you don’t need to have read All Systems Red to understand it. We learn more about Murderbot’s past, and start to see a potential future take shape. Slightly more murdering, though still not as much as one might expect from someone that calls itself Murderbot.

[remo]

Entretenidísima segunda parte de las aventuras y desventuras de nuestro querido MurderBot, el androide con inteligencia artificial pasota y descreído que vive aventuras a la vez que intenta que todo el mundo le deje en paz para poder dedicarse a ver sus telenovelas, que lleva siempre descargadas consigo. En esta ocasión aparece además ART (Asshole Research Transport), una nave espacial en misión de transporte que tiene tiempo libre y decide ayudar a nuestro prota. Muy divertida. Hay dos mas de momento y la autora quiere publicar una novela entera en 2020. Habrá que aguantar hasta entonces...

--Llegó 2020 y en la segunda lectura que me estoy haciendo de la serie para empezar la quinta entrega he vuelto a disfrutar como un cochino de las aventuras de Murderbot. Decididamente merece la relectura.

[kimbacaffeinate]

Loving this series! RTC

[Mercy]

4.5/5

[Quirky Cat]

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.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

This sequel started off a little slow for my liking, but then once it got going it really got going! I'm just going to say it: Murderbot is such a phenomenal character. Because okay, you don't think you'll be able to relate to robot designed to kill, but then... you definitely do. Murderbot likes to snark, and watch the future's equivalent of Netflix all day, and I mean, same. Sometimes Murderbot wants to be left the hell alone, and sometimes they feel a real responsibility to help others. Basically, this series is doing a really entertaining job of posing the whole "what makes us human?" question.

"I wish being a construct made me less irrational than the average human buy you may have noticed this is not the case."

I ended up loving the new characters introduced in this volume as well. At first I was a little worried about meeting a whole new group, but yeah, I shouldn't have been. They were shockingly well fleshed out for being introduced so recently, and ART the ship was like a cross between Honor Among Thieves and Illuminae and it was fabulous. Add in a lot of diversity, and it's just fabulous all around.

Will I Read the Next Book? Oh definitely! I need to know what shenanigans befall Murderbot next time.

Bottom Line: After a bit of a slow start, I was yet again entertained completely by Murderbot's adventures and companions!

*Quote taken from uncorrected proof, subject to change