Artificial condition

If you enjoyed "All Systems Red," you'll almost certainly enjoy this as it's a direct follow-up to that story, expanding on the Murderbot character and the surrounding universe in a nicely-executed, quick, and satisfying manner.

Murderbot is a bit sassier and more overtly brash in this one, which at times during the read felt a little forced to me but I ultimately adjusted to the new tone and ended up chalking the change up to a plausible evolution of the character given the events of the first book.

The story is fairly simple and straightforward, which leaves plenty of room for the additional world building and character development that I'd say are the bread and butter of the experience. I particularly enjoyed Murderbot's interactions with ART as they did a lot to check both of those boxes in a fun and novel way.

If you got your fill of Murderbot from "All Systems Red," I don't think there's much in "Artificial Condition" that you'll miss experiencing but if you enjoy the character and the universe, and are looking for more of both, this is certainly a worthy sequel worth exploring that will likely leave you itching for the next volume in the series.

The second 'Murderbot' story, this one has it going back to where it all began, a mine where it went 'rogue' and killed its clients, forcing it to disable its governor, so it wouldn't happen again. But memory, especially mostly erased memory, is a tricky thing. It isn't sure if it was the governor that made it go rogue, or it disabled its governor to go rogue. Either way, it has to know.

But getting to the mine on a distant planet won't be easy. On the journey, it finds an uneasy ally in the transport ship which happens to be an on-loan research vessel with a hugely powerful bot in charge of it, but is rather emotional over entertainment shows (provided by Murderbot) featuring research vessels whose crew dies from misadventures and needs some 'hand holding'.

On the planet itself, it hires itself off to a small team going to the planet to meet a company person holding the team's data hostage. An attempted sabotage raises the stakes as Murderbot now has to protect his clients and get them safely off the planet again before going off to find the mine. When he does this, the truth he discovers is not what he remembers. But he now has to go save his clients again before deciding what to do now he knows just what happened at the mine.