Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Condición artificial by Martha Wells

10 reviews

morgiei's review against another edition

funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Violence, Abandonment, Confinement, Medical trauma, Murder, Stalking, Body horror, Kidnapping, Death, Dysphoria, Slavery, and Injury/Injury detail

syinhui's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The systems of constructs are inherently inferior to advanced bots, but you aren’t stupid.
Yeah, well, fuck you, too, I thought, and initiated a shutdown sequence.

I enjoyed this second novella for the most part. Murderbot and ART's interactions are fascinating and honestly super adorable.

Murderbot calls it 'asshole' because, aside from being extremely introverted and painfully awkward, they can be surprisingly petty and ill-tempered too. Thus, the occasional f-bombs and voiced-out sarcasm. Hooray for free will!

I particularly liked the first half, but then again when the humans got involved, it all fell a bit flat for me. The conclusion was a tad underwhelming, though dear Murderbot managed to kick some ass, which was pretty cool of them.

It's a little disappointing that the human characters seem to take a step back, allowing Murderbot's endearing personality to shine even more. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but this could've been a lot better were the human characters not as averagely written and portrayed as stupid (suicidal and irrational) as Murderbot often thinks they are. Still, I'm following. It's short and fun, a sci-fi series easy enough to digest in one sitting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, and Medical trauma

Minor: Kidnapping

ekcd_'s review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Violence

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

adventurous funny reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, Stalking, Slavery, Medical content, Gun violence, and Cursing

Moderate: Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Excrement and Grief

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Blood, Violence, Gun violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Death, Rape, Stalking, Sexual violence, Cursing, Kidnapping, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Rape, Torture, and Sexual violence

saskiahill's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

The murderbot books are so well written, I always end up devouring them in a really short time! Clever, witty, well paced and just such a well written lead character (though I also loved ART!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Murder, Death, and Medical content

Minor: Abandonment, Torture, Sexual content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Mass/school shootings

sexualedward's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I do like this novella. Murderbot and ART are great characters. But I do see a lot of room for improvement. The climax was lackluster with no real danger, most of the story was predictable, and the secondary characters weren’t fleshed out enough. I much prefer longer books, so I may be biased, but I think it would have been better if it had more time to set things up.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, and Murder

Minor: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Kidnapping, and Medical trauma

mswarning's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Violence, Medical trauma, and Medical content

tachyondecay's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 A year and a half and one gender identity change later, here I am reading the second Murderbot Diaries novella, Artificial Condition! My review of the first book focuses quite a bit on Murderbot’s portrayal as agender, along with some critiques of the worldbuilding (or lack thereof). The good news is, I think I liked this book even more than the first! That being said, I’m happy with the current lengths of these books—I know Martha Wells has a Murderbot novel out, but I’m not sure I would want to read a novel-length story with this protagonist? Hmm. We’ll see.

Having “escaped” from the humans who bought it, Murderbot books passage on an uncrewed research transport vessel. Its destination is the planet where it thinks it hacked its governor module and then killed a bunch of people, for unknown reasons. Murderbot wants answers. What it doesn’t anticipate is that the bot intelligence that runs the transport is smarter than your average bot. Murderbot nicknames it ART, for Asshole Research Transport. The two of them “bond,” if you can call it that, over watching human-produced media, and ART kind of starts to feel protective towards Murderbot. So ART helps out as Murderbot poses as a security consultant to get down to the surface of the planet and learn more about its missing murderous memories.

The dynamic between Murderbot and ART is everything in this book. This is the odd couple bot comedy I hadn’t realized I needed. I mean, yes, there is still murder and intrigue and all that stuff—but none of that matters compared to the banter between these two. You come to find out what happens to Murderbot, but you stay for ART’s sulking and Murderbot’s reluctant partnership with it.

Indeed, this is probably the most appealing element of this series: the protagonists are not human. The humans in this series are bad or fragile, and Murderbot knows how to deal with one even if it still struggles to understand the other. Watching Murderbot interact with its new humans is a rewarding experience that helps us understand what it is struggling with: it wants to hide that it is a SecUnit, so it attempts to become more human-like. But how far does it want to go in its emulation of humanity? Murderbot’s obsession with uncovering its past is laudable and understandable—but will this hinder Murderbot’s ability to conceive of a concrete, satisfactory future?

Artificial Condition doesn’t answer all those questions, nor should it. It’s a competent little novella that sets up a problem and shows us how Murderbot approaches it, and that’s good enough. If you liked All Systems Red, this one is worth a read too! Will I read the next one? Who knows! Stay tuned.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Medical content, Medical trauma, Gun violence, and Gore

Minor: Sexual content

dokushoka's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement and Murder

Minor: Medical trauma