Murderbot 2 is a nice, short story but is constrained by its length. Our main character is joined by a decent secondary, with enough story development time for us to invest in the character. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are barely more than names and the overall plot is ultimately shallow. I continue to appreciate the thoroughness to the setting and relationships between constructs, bots, and humans. You can tell there's a lot of left unwritten, and that the world building is deeper than what Murderbot is able to explore. I appreciate this, but am also cognizant that if the setting was also shallow, I would give up on these short stories.

Readers that enjoy short stories will not have these complaints. For the rest, it's short enough that you might as well give it a try.

I'm slightly annoyed that ART will not be present in the future novels, as the lack of developed characters constantly reminds me how much the format of short stories. I found the background for Murderbot to be an interesting diversion, but it didn't seem to impact that story. The rest was fun -- seeing how Murderbot can be revised to not be so obviously a construct, as well as his continuing dislike of interacting with humanity.