Ms. Hen reviews Artificial Condition

 

Artificial Condition 

Martha Wells

2018

Tor.com

Ms. Hen decided to read this book, because she has been reading a really long book, and she wanted to read and finish something fast. She read the first one in this series, and thought it was charming, so she decided to dip back into the world of Murderbot.

Murderbot is a robot with feelings: it feels ashamed at having killed people, and has low self-esteem. It escapes from the planet where it committed the crimes, and makes a friend on a ship, another bot, ART. This bot advises it to get a job, so it can get transport to another system.

Murderbot gets hired as a security consultant to a team of humans. They think it is human. It travels with them to another planet, and they get in trouble. ART saves them, and Murderbot does not feel good about the bad advice it gave the humans.

This novel reads like a long short story. It's another chapter in the story of Murderbot, and it's a fast read, and colorful enough to keep Ms. Hen's attention. She feel sorry for Murderbot because it's a bot that seems to have imposter syndrome; it is better than it thinks it is. 

Ms. Hen thinks that a lot of young people could relate to Murderbot, because it escapes into media, or watching series, and it does not feel good about itself. It does not know what it wants, and does not know how to accomplish what it needs to do to survive.

ARTIFICIAL CONDITION is a pleasant quick read, and Ms. Hen recommends it to anyone who is not afraid of reading about a robot that is also a murderer, but also feels badly about itself, and does not know how to exist in the right way.