Soh Kam Yung reviewed Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
Murderbot digs into its past
3 stars
The second 'Murderbot' story, this one has it going back to where it all began, a mine where it went 'rogue' and killed its clients, forcing it to disable its governor, so it wouldn't happen again. But memory, especially mostly erased memory, is a tricky thing. It isn't sure if it was the governor that made it go rogue, or it disabled its governor to go rogue. Either way, it has to know.
But getting to the mine on a distant planet won't be easy. On the journey, it finds an uneasy ally in the transport ship which happens to be an on-loan research vessel with a hugely powerful bot in charge of it, but is rather emotional over entertainment shows (provided by Murderbot) featuring research vessels whose crew dies from misadventures and needs some 'hand holding'.
On the planet itself, it hires itself off to a small team going …
The second 'Murderbot' story, this one has it going back to where it all began, a mine where it went 'rogue' and killed its clients, forcing it to disable its governor, so it wouldn't happen again. But memory, especially mostly erased memory, is a tricky thing. It isn't sure if it was the governor that made it go rogue, or it disabled its governor to go rogue. Either way, it has to know.
But getting to the mine on a distant planet won't be easy. On the journey, it finds an uneasy ally in the transport ship which happens to be an on-loan research vessel with a hugely powerful bot in charge of it, but is rather emotional over entertainment shows (provided by Murderbot) featuring research vessels whose crew dies from misadventures and needs some 'hand holding'.
On the planet itself, it hires itself off to a small team going to the planet to meet a company person holding the team's data hostage. An attempted sabotage raises the stakes as Murderbot now has to protect his clients and get them safely off the planet again before going off to find the mine. When he does this, the truth he discovers is not what he remembers. But he now has to go save his clients again before deciding what to do now he knows just what happened at the mine.
