Artificial Condition

After multiple rounds of abandoning my intended to-read, I decided that the only way to get to COVID was to read like I was a teenager again: back-to-back science fiction and fantasy, preferably in serial form. Good news: in the two decades that have passed, spec fic has gotten super high-brow. Murderbot carried me through all of July. In this, second outing, despite it's best intentions, Murderbot keeps making friends. ART, arguably Murderbot's best friend, is my favorite character. Fresh off of its first human friendships (and unwilling to acknowledge them as such), Murderbot needs another bot to be friends with. And ART is not human, although charmingly a bit arrogant, and definitely more than a bit pedantic, ART is a beautiful foil to the sardonic and asocial Murderbot.

The second book in the series spools out some of the backstory hinted at in the first, but the central focus is exploring what makes a bot itself and not just any generic construct. I loved this: I think it had a lot to say about people, growth and relationships.