I read quickly, finishing in one sitting. After its thrilling adventures on its last expedition as a SecUnit, I was curious to see what 'Bot would do with freedom. It was with anticipation of pleasure that I picked up the second installment in the Murderbot series. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.' Interacting meant talking, and eye contact.

I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. There's plenty here to entertain the many fans of the first novella.'I was stalling. The broadening of Murderbot's experience, however mundane, 'make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person,' and the dizzying, inarguable plenitude of personhood is what this dense novella most intimately explores. The most endearing is ART, a wacky cross between 2001's HAL and Mycroft Holmes, who plays to Murderbot's Sherlock with acerbic and infinite superiority. The real discovery is not about the horrific events Murderbot may have participated in some 35,000 hours ago, but the bonds it never intended to form with beings who were no part of its plan. Sounds like a rollicking time which it is, but not in the way one might expect. Murderbot, a sentient artificial intelligence, is on the lam, hopping cargo transports and hacking security cameras on a quest to discover the truth of its own origin story as the villain of a massacre. Wells follows the classically tight adventure pacing of All Systems Red with a slightly disorienting shift to self-exploration, making intense moments out of data dumps and matter-of-fact narrative out of fights to the death.

It may be all machine, but Murderbot’s quest for identity is very human, making its odyssey through space a true journey of self-discovery. While the action that drives this fast-paced plot had us on our toes, we especially loved Murderbot’s growing personality-complete with an improving sense of irony. Will the other AI get in the way, or become an unlikely ally? Wells’ multilayered and delightfully funny storytelling transported us right into her wonderfully bizarre space opera. But the self-aware AI’s existential crisis becomes an epic adventure when the far more powerful artificial intelligence running the transport ship gets wind of Murderbot’s plan. In this awesomely strange and exciting sequel to Martha Wells’ Nebula Award–winning All Systems Red, our favorite sociopathic security robot decides to head for the mining planet where it was first activated. And it’s bent on understanding where it got its terrifying name. Get ready to go to the next level with Murderbot.

Martha wells artificial condition