Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Artificial Condition

Like the first book in the series, this one was entertaining but way too short. Murderbot spent most of this one passing as human, which was fantastic. I found its attempts to figure out how to interact with people and act like a human amusing and remarkably relatable. (Also, watching Murderbot attempt to do an actual job interview was hilarious.) The human side characters were pretty good too. Murderbot's goal this book is to get answers about its past - and it did, but the answers felt anticlimactic. Either there's going to be more to it or the answers aren't a huge part of whatever Murderbot is looking for. It's on a journey looking for something, but it's not really sure what yet. (and honestly that's pretty relatable too), and that made this whole book feel less like a self-contained story and more like one section of a larger book. It's not like *All Systems Red* where it definitely could have been expanded - it was exactly as long as it needed to be, it just felt incomplete. Perhaps I should be reading this like a novel released in parts than as individual novellas? Regardless, I enjoyed it and I'm excited to keep reading this series.

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wilybooklover's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

4.0

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maeverose's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

I didn’t take in all the details because I listened to the audiobook and was doing stuff at the same time, so I feel like I can’t really review it properly but I still really liked it. I love the worldbuilding in this series so far.

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fiveredhens's review against another edition

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reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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magic_multicolored_miracle's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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ailsaod's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Once again very enjoyable. Wells is very good at introducing new characters and getting you invested in them very quickly. I wasn't sure book 2 would be able to live up to the precedent set by book 1 but it did! I think book 1 was overall a slightly better story but the introduction of ART here was great and it is still a lot of fun!

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sexualedward's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I do like this novella. Murderbot and ART are great characters. But I do see a lot of room for improvement. The climax was lackluster with no real danger, most of the story was predictable, and the secondary characters weren’t fleshed out enough. I much prefer longer books, so I may be biased, but I think it would have been better if it had more time to set things up.

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purplepenning's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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