The last half of 2018 was such a hellhole for me personally that I kind of just stopped posting reviews and one that I missed out on getting to review was the excellent first book in the Murderbot series. I’m not surprised at how popular the series is here as they seems like the perfect Cannonball Read kind of books. Plus, they’re novellas so it’s really easy to tear through them quickly.
—> Spoilers below for previous books! <—
Artificial Condition (Murderbot #2) – 5 stars
ART said, What does it want?
To kill all the humans, I answered.
I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases. It said, That is irrational.
I know, I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media? It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.
My favorite novella of the three I’ve read so far. Murderbot hitches a ride on a transport vehicle that ends up being more than was bargained for. ART (Asshole Research Transport) makes its presence known and works itself into Murderbots situation. Watching the feeds with Murderbot, telling Murderbot it can handle itself if Murderbot were to try anything funny, convincing Murderbot that no one that’s ever seen a SecUnit will be fooled into thinking they’re not a SecUnit and maybe some plastic surgery and/or modifications would help. ART was such a goddamned delight, I have no words.
Together they team up to try and find more information about Murderbot’s history in one of the mines of an off the map planet. Working with a few humans, we get to see how our favorite SecUnit fares when forced to act like a human with actual humans and it’s both heartwarming and hilarious.
Rogue Protocol (Murderbot #3) – 4 stars
I had anticipated a pretty high level of annoyance, maybe as high as 85%. Now I was looking at 90%, possibly 95%.
Sadly we say goodbye to ART (for now? I sincerely hope characters come back in book 4) and Murderbot sneaks their way onto a vessel heading to an abandoned GrayCris “terraforming” installation, hoping to dig up dirt that can be given to Dr. Mensah, bolstering her side of the fight against the corporation. 
Unfortunately Murderbot didn’t plan for the humans that would also be joining in on the journey which forces the half person, half SecUnit to hide away for the journey. Immediately we get to see the discomfort our bot has at trying to go back in time to when functioning only as a SecUnit was fulfilling.
When they land, Murderbot is hoping to get away and go it alone, but ends up having to play nice with a “friend bot” named Miki. Our anti-social bot is completely horrified by how Miki interacts with humans. They mostly treat Miki like a child and Miki is programmed to “love” and care for humans. It’s fun to see how the two interact with each other and how confused and emotional(?!) Murderbot gets.
Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.
Hopefully my library hold for book 4 comes in soon! I’m on pins and needles waiting to find out what happens next.