Artificial Condition

Ths second novella follows on from All Systems Red although it's largely separate from that earlier work - it helps to know what happened, and to have the introduction to the central character, but it's not essential to follow what's happening in this one. The time we see Murderbot digging into its own past, trying to find out what happened that led to it going rogue in the first place, and having to disguise its true nature in order to do so.

If there's a weakness, it's that the story is shorter than it could have been. Not that it's paced too rapidly, because it doesn't feel that way at all, but because questions remain open at the end that could easily have been followed up in a subsequent part of a longer novel, rather than having to wait for the next novella in the series. But that's the format we have. A plus, especially given the short length of the story, is that we do get to see a little bit more of the setting, with a ship AI being an entertaining major new character, differing from both humans and from Murderbot itself, and also a Sexbot appearing for the first time. (I like the way, incidentally, that the external gender of the Sexbot is never mentioned, it's so completely irrelevant to the character providing the narration).