Book Review: Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2) by Martha Wells
Cover art by Jaime Jones
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Murderbot Diaries (Book #2)
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 149 pages (Kindle Edition)
Word count: 32,400 words
Published: 8th May 2018 by Tordotcom
Artificial Condition offers one great new supporting character to accompany our beloved Murderbot.
“I would defer to your expertise in shooting and killing things. You should defer to mine in data analysis.”
Firstly, ART, simplified from Asshole Research Transport, is hands down the main highlight of the novella. Artifical Condition is the second novella in The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, and based on what I have heard, this is where the series started to get really good. I slightly disagree with that. I think this was more or less around the same level of quality with All Sysmtes Red. Good, enjoyable, and definitely readable. It works super well as a palate cleanser. But it is not a big upgrade over the first title. In my opinion, if you go into this expecting a significant upgrade in storytelling, you might end up disappointed.
“Fear was an artificial condition. It’s imposed from the outside. So it’s possible to fight it. You should do the things you’re afraid of.”
All things said… As I mentioned earlier, ART and its interaction with Murderbot is my favorite part of the novella, and I wish there were more of their chemistry throughout the series. Writing this review now after having read the third and fourth novella as well, I am quite surprised that Artificial Condition is the only title where we have ART as a supporting character. Another thing I enjoyed a lot about this sequel is a deeper dive into Murderbot’s psyche as it wants to know about how its past earned it the title of Murderbot. I think the main thing Artificial Condition does well, and the entire series on that front is how we get to peel more and more of Murderbot’s feelings with each title. I said this in my review of All Systems Red. Murderbot constantly tries to state that it does not care about humans, but its actions definitely contradict that. I will elaborate more on this in later books.
“I didn’t care what humans were doing to each other as long as I didn’t have to a) stop it or b) clean up after it.”
For me, the downside of this novella is the lack of compelling supporting characters. ART aside, the supporting characters in Artificial Condition were not memorable, in my opinion. This is most likely due to the fact this book is a short novella. And similar to several situations with many novellas, they would benefit from more room for exploration and character development. Plus, because Artificial Condition worked as a standalone novella, the majority of the supporting characters from All Systems Red are not here.
“Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.”
Overall, I found Artificial Condition to be another entertaining palate cleanser when you need a short and fun sci-fi break from your usual big tomes reading. And I do believe, myself included, many of us can relate to Murderbot with its constant need and dependency to consume entertainment media as much as possible. I have a feeling this, more than anything else, made the series shine for many readers. No matter how much we love books, manga, and TV shows, we still need human interactions to survive. This is unavoidable. Murderbot seems to face the same situation, and it enhances its relatability as a character.
“I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn’t exist.”
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