The novella “Artificial Condition” by Martha Wells was published for the first time in 2018. It won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards as the best novella of the year. It’s the second work of “The Murderbot Diaries” series and follows “All Systems Red“.
Murderbot is looking for crucial information to understand its past and to reach the place where it can conduct its investigation, it embarks on a cargo spaceship that has no human crew but is piloted by a powerful artificial intelligence. During the voyage, some exchanges with it lead to it being nicknamed the ART (Asshole Research Transport). Despite this, the two of them begin a collaboration.
Once it reached its destination, Murderbot finds a job as a security consultant for some scientists who carried out work on behalf of a company which then severed the relationship and kept the results obtained. Soon, it realizes that the company’s owner is ready to do anything to get rid of the scientist.
The second novella in “The Murderbot Diaries” series reprises the story of the SecUnit that circumvented the controls that the company that created it had inserted to control it. Following the events of “All Systems Red”, Murderbot decides that to truly understand itself, it must investigate a crucial event in its past.
Martha Wells uses “Artificial Condition” to continue developing Murderbot but also to expand that fictional universe. The tone remains the same as the first novella and is also told as a sort of diary written by Murderbot. The protagonist continues to show its cynicism and irony but the lighthearted tone is only the surface and it’s easy to see the very serious issues linked to that future in which corporate interests remain very important.
In particular, in “Artificial Condition” there’s a company that hired three scientists to conduct research but at a certain point decided to end the relationship and keep the research results. The company’s methods seem decidedly extreme with the owner deeming it more efficient to eliminate people who’re not welcome anymore than to have her own lawyers work on the issue.
Sexbots also appear in this novella, which are different from SecUnits among other things due to the presence of the sexual characteristics necessary for the work for which they are produced. Sexbots are considered sexual tools but despite their name, they’re not robots but cyborgs with a mind. They’re sentient and this stresses even more than the SecUnits the problem of their nature and the sexual slavery to which they are reduced.
The presence of artificial intelligence is decidedly more lighthearted thanks to the importance of the bot that controls the cargo spaceship on which Murderbot travels. The bot is used for astronomical research as well during its trips, so it has a very powerful and curious mind. The interaction between Murderbot and the bot is complicated, to the point that Murderbot gives it a colorful nickname, but in the end, the two of them collaborate and exchange opinions on the soap operas they watch together and on humans.
Like the first novella, “Artificial Condition” is the type of work that can be very interesting for readers who appreciate the themes developed with the food for thought they offer. It closes another chapter in the Murderbot’s story, leaving open its personal story, which is developed in the following works in this series. It’s available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
