Book Review: Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries

Pros: interpersonal conflict, new settings and characters, lots of hacking

Cons:

Beginning directly after the events in All Systems Red, Murderbot hitches a ride on the intelligent transport ART to the mining installation where its mass murder event took place. It needs to reconcile its past before it can decide its future. But visiting the installation means pretending to be an augmented human security consultant. Luckily ART has some ideas to help it with that.

Murderbot and ART are both sarcastic and start off rubbing each other the wrong way, making their interactions very entertaining to read. You get a great feel for the concerns Murderbot has about getting caught while trying to investigate its past. It doesn’t know how to act like a human, so it’s fun watching it help the young humans who don’t know what they’re doing either. More of the wider world is hinted at, with other corporations that put profits over people.

It’s a novella, so it’s on the short side, but the story packs a punch.

=> If you’re reading the short stories as well as the novellas, here is where you read “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy”. This story centres on ART/Perihelion’s crew and a mission they’re on as they wonder why their intelligent transport seems different after it’s last unmanned cargo run.

Otherwise, the next book in the series is Rogue Protocol

Revisited review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

I first read a year after it was published and loved it but thought it was on the short side. I like books with a lot of detailed world building and character development. Though I’d collected the other books in the series as they came out, I never seemed to have time to read them. I recently reread All Systems Red and continued with the rest of the Murderbot Diaries series (novellas, novels, and short stories), then read them all a second time and have a better appreciation for this book. Sometimes you find a book at the right time and it just speaks to you. And Murderbot’s journey has had a massive impact on me this time through. As the series continues you learn so much about the world and the other characters. As someone who never seems to know what to do or say in social situations, Murderbot’s anxiety is highly relatable. I also appreciate how, as the series progresses, the author deals with trauma and its aftermath. Murderbot's narrative has a dry sense of humour and sarcasm, which I absolutely love. As I've reread the books I've also discovered a real depth to the material. Each time through I learned new things, and could better appreciate Murderbot's journey. I'm also impressed how each book tells a different kind of story. One is about uncovering the past, one is a murder mystery, one is a rescue mission. This keeps the series feeling fresh, as it's not just similar plots with minor variations each time. I can't wait to see where Murderbot goes in the future.

So here’s my slightly modified 2018 review:

Pros: interesting protagonist

Cons: short

Murderbot is a SecUnit made of cloned human and mechanical parts that’s hacked its governor module so it no longer has to obey commands. It’s been assigned to provide security for a small survey group looking at a new planet. But the group encounters an unknown hostile life form that wasn’t mentioned in the original survey report, which makes them wonder what else was missed - or possibly removed on purpose.

This is a 100 page novella, so it’s fairly short. That means it’s light on the world-building and character development. While you get to know Murderbot pretty well, the other characters, with the exception of Gurathin (who’s a light antagonist) and Mensah (the group leader) felt interchangeable. Having said that, Murderbot is fascinating and you really get inside its head.

The plot was interesting and quick paced. There are some tense moments, though the ending comes up so fast it didn’t feel particularly climactic (which may be due to my reading the story in 2 sittings instead of all at once).

It’s fun and entertaining and I’ll definitely read the next one.

=> The next book in the series is Artificial Condition

Return to blogging

For the past several years I’ve been reading less fiction and more non-fiction. Part of this is due to a reduced ability to concentrate as covid and the politics of the world loomed large. I started reading more medieval history books for research to accompany a series of trips to Europe. There were a lot of famous medieval sites I’d never seen before, and suddenly I had a burning need to see as many of them as I could. These were long, stressful, but amazing trips and I had the opportunity to visit so many (SO MANY!) churches, castles, and historic cities and sites.

A few months ago I stopped reading fiction altogether as I devoted my spare time to the final one of these intense trips. I’m back and want to start reviewing again. I’ve been reading the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and loving them. I’m able to concentrate on a story again and enjoy fiction.

So I’ll be reviewing and posting again. Not everything I read. Sometimes it’s nice to just enjoy a book and not have to analyze it. But I’m hoping to get a new post up once or twice a month. I'm thinking one book or TV show review and one medieval history post of some sort. 

It feels good to be back.

Book Review: Saint Death’s Herald by C. S. E. Cooney

Picking up immediately where book 1, Saint Death’s Daughter, left off, Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones is hot on the trail of the necromancer ghost of her great grandfather Irradiant Stones. “Grandpa Rad” headed north, possessing the body of Cracchen Skrathmandan. With the help of Duantri, Lanie needs to put her grandpa’s spirit to rest and fulfill her promise to bring Cracchen home. But Lanie isn’t the only one hunting her grandpa. The spirits of the long dead Northern sky wizards he trapped for a century are after him too. And they have a worse fate in mind than releasing the spirit into his god’s rest. 

If you haven’t read book 1 in a while, I highly recommend skimming or reading it again before picking this up, as there’s no recap and little to remind you of what’s happened thus far in the story.

The book has plenty of adventure. There’s the hunt, several dramatic fight scenes, and more magical experimentation. We get to learn more about the world, looking at Leech and Skakmaht. The skinchangers and their form of changeling magic was fascinating, especially how their explanation of the world was subtly different from that of the humans.

I was a bit disappointed by some of the characters who had very small rolls. Makkovian and Datu only show up in a few chapters and Lir is mostly forgotten. I did appreciate that Makkovian has his own quest to perform, showing his life isn’t on hold while Lanie is off doing her thing. 

The middle of the book felt a bit slow. There’s a lot of great action and fun new world building and then things sort of pause for a while.

I thought the last third of the book, in Skakmaht, was fantastic. Learning more about the sky houses and the wizard magic was very interesting. I also thought the book had a fitting conclusion.

If you liked the first book this one builds on what was accomplished and fleshes out more of the wider world. Lanie keeps learning new ways of using her necromantic powers, and grows as a person. It’s a worthy conclusion.

I'll be posting here less and not accepting review requests going forward

As you may have noticed, there hasn’t been much activity on my blog in recent months. I’ve been doing several hardcore research trips to Europe the past few years that have required an intense amount of research. As a result, the number of fiction books I’ve been reading has been drastically reduced. I’m mostly reading history and art books related to the regions and specific churches I’m travelling to see.

I’ve been reluctant to accept review requests as a result. I’ve still taken on a few books, mostly continuations of series I enjoy. As I get older my reading tastes have shifted somewhat and I’ve become a lot more picky and critical about what I read. I stop earlier if I’m not enjoying a book.

I’ve been thinking about this for several weeks now. While I’m not going to close this blog, I won’t be updating it with new content very often. I still have one review I accepted for a book coming out in April (Saint Death’s Herald) that I will post, and I’ll probably continue to post the occasional history book review here. But don’t expect regular content here for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I occasionally post about medieval history and book reviews I’ve written on Bluesky, where you can find me as jstrider66 (@jstrider66.bsky.social).

Book Review: Medieval Cats: Claws, Paws, and Kitties of Yore by Professor Catherine Nappington

This is a cute adult picture book that showcases images of cats from medieval and later manuscripts. It’s organized into 10 chapters plus an introduction. There are a lot of great colour images of rather bizarre looking cats and mice (medieval artists weren’t always skilled at depicting their subject matter). Between pictures there are humorous modern comments on the photos, quotes from various ages (mostly medieval), and cat facts.

Some of the comments use terms that are out of style in medieval circles, like ‘dark ages’ or are inaccurate, like calling the middle ages ‘prudish’ (fabliaux anyone?).

I learned some new things and discovered some sources and manuscripts I’d like to learn more about.

If you know a cat lover, it’s an entertaining book and fairly quick to flip through.

History Book Review: Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year by Eleanor Parker

The book details the seasonal beliefs and festivals of the Anglo-Saxons by examining each season and some of its special aspects. After the introduction each season has 3 chapters breaking down it’s most important aspects, followed by references and bibliography.

This is a fascinating book. It’s interesting seeing how daily life changed with the season but the author does so much more. She examines how the Anglo-Saxons FELT about each season, like how winter ice kept them landlocked and trapped. She goes over various terms they used for the seasons and holy days, if and how those changed with the coming of Christianity. To the extent that the primary sources allow, she also details how various holy days were celebrated

There are lots of quotes from various Anglo-Saxon works. I learned about a few new sources I’d like to look up. There are no illustrations in the book, but it doesn’t really need them. This isn’t a visual tour, it’s an intellectual and emotional one.

I found this an interesting book that taught me a lot about how Anglo-Saxons thought about the world and how they lived and celebrated throughout the year.