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A review by mburnamfink
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
3.0
Murderbot #2 sees our titular character heading back to the scene of the crime, a mining installation where it killed 57 humans and feels profound guilt for what it did. Along the way it teams up with a Research Transport cargo ship, and a group of three humans looking to recover some data. Mysterious malefactors keep trying to assassinate Murderbot's clients, and it finds out that someone hacked killware into the mine. It wasn't responsible.
But there's starting to be an odd tonal disconnect between an interstellar cyberpunk dystopia where assassinating low level researchers who stumble onto something corporate doesn't want them to know is super common, and the incredibly naïve humans around Murderbot. There's maybe a point that we're so reliant on the machinery around us that our best defense against it not killing us all is that it likes us, but it's clumsily made. As always, the sardonic tone continues to excel, with plot, character, and setting just hanging off it.
But there's starting to be an odd tonal disconnect between an interstellar cyberpunk dystopia where assassinating low level researchers who stumble onto something corporate doesn't want them to know is super common, and the incredibly naïve humans around Murderbot. There's maybe a point that we're so reliant on the machinery around us that our best defense against it not killing us all is that it likes us, but it's clumsily made. As always, the sardonic tone continues to excel, with plot, character, and setting just hanging off it.