Artificial Condition
{5/5} “I told myself I still looked like a SecUnit without armor, hopelessly exposed, but the truth was I did look more human. And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this. It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.”
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, published in 2018
Murderbot is trying to be inconspicuous amongst humans, so when there’s a news story about what happened with PreservationAux it’s momentarily worried about an image that includes its face. But it looks like no one is looking for a rogue SecUnit. It makes its way onto a ship with no humans but is startled to find the ship is more powerful than expected. The ship knows it’s a rogue SecUnit. But the ship just wants to watch a new show, Worldhoppers, with Murderbot.
This is the 2nd Murderbot novella, following All Systems Red.
Like Asimov and Le Guin, Wells has mastered the art of interesting conversation. The conversation between Murderbot and the bot who is a ship is astonishing.
It’s about finding out if you did something horrible in the past or if something horrible was done to you, and keeping your clients alive even when they’re doing something stupid.
This is the 2nd book I’ve read by Wells.