Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries (The Murderbot Diaries, 2)

This is the first time I have ever bothered to review a book, and I'm doing it solely because I am ticked off. I've been a big time Martha Wells fan since Death of the Necromancer. Prior to that, I stopped reading SciFi because most of it was pretty lame, but I became a huge fan and pretty much bought each of her books the day it was available, happily paying full price for the provided enjoyment. Then yesterday afternoon I started reading this book. Murderbot is a bit too traditional SciFi for me, but his quirkiness and the quality writing make up for it. I was getting into the book, having traveled to the coffee shop and settled into my favorite big squishy chair, when BAM!, the book ended? My initial thought was my Kindle was acting up, but no, this is a really short book. That's fine for $3.99, but for the ten bucks I paid I feel my loyalty has been taken advantage of. Now, I'll probably continue the series because I have a ton of love an respect for the author, but I do feel a bit betrayed. I'm retired and read like a fiend, so I need to get decent value. If this is the "new thing", then I'll probably have to find a new favorite author to love and respect.

IThis is the 2nd volume in Martha Wells’ “Murderbot Diaries”. It’s also the 2nd of my May New Releases – the first being “The Wolf: Under The Northern Sky” – which turned out to be a beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable book.I enjoyed “All Systems Red” – enough to convince me to buy the three sequels. The next book – “Rogue Protocol” – is scheduled for release in August of this year. Contrary to what I wrote in the first review, I did actually did buy all volumes in hardcover. Given what I know Wells is capable of – I guess I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and just assume that she’s going to do something special with this story.After reading this second book, I have to say…Murderbot is growing on me. I was right about the holes in “All Systems Red” – Wells is parsing out her backstory and is filling in the blanks as she goes. MB is becoming a more substantial and relate-able character as the story progresses. He’s growing and defining himself – starting to come to terms with his independence and deciding who he wants to be. Most of that growth is driven by his need to interact with a growing group of diverse individuals and the choices those interactions force on him. He obligates himself to a new group of humans – first via a contract he negotiates and then in response to a series of ethical choices that result from that contractual obligation. Those choices allow you to better understand MB, how he thinks about himself and how he feels about the humans who created him.Just as important are the relationships he forms with other machine intelligences. The first and most entertaining of these is the alliance or friendship or something in between that he forms with the Artificial Intelligence – ART – responsible for the operation of a Research Transport vessel that he uses to escape from the world of his first set of human patrons. ART is a surprise for MB – he’d assumed that this would be an uncommunicative machine intelligence. In fact, ART turns out to be as communicative and as richly complex as MB and their relationship transitions from arms length wary to mutually supportive and amusingly familiar. ART is arrogantly confident in his superior abilities but humanizes as a result of his interactions with MB. As the story progresses, they become an effective, entertaining, almost lovable team united partially by the boredom of their constrained lives in service to human beings that are – in many ways – far less capable than either of them.Long to short – this story is becoming increasingly interesting and entertaining. I actually enjoyed “Artificial Condition” more than I did “All Systems Red”. It was richer, more complex and it finally allowed me to connect in a more meaningful way to MB. I can’t help but think that I’m going to really wind up liking this guy as the story progresses.I honestly have only one complaint and it has nothing to do with the book itself. I don’t like the way Martha Wells and the publisher are commercializing the work – hence the Razor / Blades quote. The story is being sold as 4 separate novellas:All Systems Red – 2017Artificial Condition – May 2018Rogue Protocol – August 2018Exit Strategy – October 2018They’re sold separately as hardcovers at the price of $16.19 and as e-copies for $9.99. In reality, these are 4 sections of one book – obvious as you read through each separately – and could easily have been published in one volume. The fact that they were all released within an 18 month period only confirms that the Author and the publisher made a pretty crass commercial decision to break the book into four pieces and sell them separately to maximize revenue.Instead of paying $25 for a single hardcover volume, I’m forced to purchase 4 separate novellas for a combined cost of ~$68.00 in hardcover or ~$40.00 in digital format. Before you say it, I will – shame on me – no one forced me to spend the money – I know I’m being played. Nevertheless, I’m really enjoying the books and I want to get my hands on them as they become available. It just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and it makes me wonder about Wells’ attitude towards her fans and readers. Wells and her publisher gave me the Razor but she’s selling me the blades – one at a time – at a pretty high price.My recommendation – wait until an omnibus edition is published and just read it straight through. You’ll enjoy the story AND you won’t feel like you’re being exploited. I wish I was able to take my own advice. 🙁

This story is way too short for the price. I want to read the next one but I certainly am not going to shell out $10 for a novella.

Like so many others, I fell for the first Murderbot book and gleefully awaited the series' return. What a disappointment. This novella reads like a mere chapter in a longer book. The plot is paper-thin, the characters cardboard cutouts, and the writing is serviceable at best. At worst, the prose is hugely repetitive and bland. I paid $10 for the Kindle edition of the book and it took me less than two hours to read it. And now the publisher wants me to pay another $20 for the next two installments. I can abide by reading a poorly written book (it's not even a book, really, but a short story) but I hate getting ripped off.

Murderbot continues to be entertaining, though this installment doesn’t cohere as well as the first, and I was under the impression I was getting a novel, not a novella for the price of a full book.

I enjoyed the first Murderbot book, and ordered Artifiial Condition assuming it would be a full length novel. For almost $10 I want more than a few pages. This is a neat little story, and Wells writes well. But come on - I feel ripped off

I confess that I have read all of the Murderbot Diaries and pre-ordered the next, my objection to the length of the stories notwithstanding. But I have to say--charging novel-length prices for what is essentially a novella is more than a bit irritating. None of the Murderbot books is over 180 pages or so. If the first 3 books had been combined into one full-priced novel that would seem about right.In fact, my reaction to these books really seems to function on two levels--I eagerly consumed them even while feeling a sense of frustration and disappointment. On the plus side: Wells' prose is easy to follow and her protagonist is very likeable, and all three of these books are an easy, breezy read that leave you wanting more. The downside? Apart from the previously mentioned length of the stories, the plots really don't carry much of a sense of struggle. Murderbot hacks his/her/its way effortlessly through computer systems, is pretty close to impossible to kill, and as a result is seldom in any real jeopardy (though the same cannot be said for the humans caught in the crossfire). Plots are fairly predictable and the non-murderbot characters seem more or less disposable.

Murderbot diaries is one book separated into 4 short stories. Each one takes about 2 hours to read. The silly price is a great shame because the book is excellent. Martha Wells could draw in a huge fanbase if she sold this as one book or simply priced it as 4 short stories. Instead, people will feel bad about the books; nobody likes to be ripped off. This would have been a 5 star review, but I feel I must reduce it to 3 stars because of the pricing.The central character is highly original and robots have never been characterised so well since Iain Banks. He is a human/robot construct who should be under control from his programming but has managed to hack the program to have some free will in his decisions. He goes on to have a different adventure in each of the 4 stories and save people from the evil, stop-at-nothing-for-profit, mega-corporation, making some decent friends with people/bots that he meets on the way. If you like hard SF with realistically-drawn future technology then you will like this.Wait until the price goes down before buying and read “Sea of Rust” or “Windup Girl” or any of Bank's Culture Series books (such as “Player of Games” or “Excession”) in the meantime. These are all excellent full-size books which contain well-characterised drones/robots and they are all sold at a reasonable price.

It’s a decent story but it’s a short story priced as if it was a full length novel. Having been sucked in I’ve bought all 4 as I hate leaving a good story - and it is a good story, and well written - unfinished.That said I’d advise avoiding this until the price of the four books is the same as the average length novel they will then represent. I will certainly not be buying any more Martha Wells at this kind of price (just under £6 each) in future. And that includes further outings, if any, for the murderbot.Your mileage may vary of course, but I’m not encouraging this kind of pricing with my money.

The books in the murderbot series are very good, I have bought three and enjoyed them all. However in reality the series is one good sized book split into five short stories. In effect you end up paying over £30 for a single novel. Total rip-off. Ultimately the silly price leaves you feeling cheated. I am stopping after the three I have read and will no longer by any books by this author until the pricing is reasonable. 😡

Enjoyed the story but I was done with it in under an hour. Way too expensive for a novella and way too short for a novel. I've read better books on kindle unlimited. Not going to buy any more of these. The whole series would have made a single book and I would have been happy to pay that amount for that.

Murderbot has decided to investigate the planet where it originally went rogue and earned its name. This means avoiding being discovered by humans who would be hostile to its very existence. So it hitches a ride with an unmanned research ship; this is not necessarily a safe option, as the ship’s AI is somewhat curious, and can’t be completely distracted by Murderbot’s collection of space opera shows. And then when Murderbot reaches the planet, it decides a good cover is to sign on as a security consultant for a group of naive scientists who may have just made a big discovery. What could possible go wrong…?This is another great little novella narrated by the snarky Murderbot, as it discovers things about its past, and itself, that will have a big impact on its future.