Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (2018)

The second installment of Murderbot, our lethal friend who wants to be a real boy (or girl).

SciFi Review: Artificial Condition takes us further along the path in which a SecUnit leaves behind a previous identity for that of becoming human. Here Murderbot makes extreme physical changes and discards the protective armor and opaqued helmet that make life bearable. Murderbot (and I) felt naked without it. I want my armor back, please. In Artificial Condition Murderbot also begins to experience and comprehend the concept of freedom and free will, apart from being a bot/human construct gone rogue: "I forgot I had a choice ... . Being asked to stay, with a please and an option for refusal, hit me almost as hard as a human asking for my opinion and actually listening to me." If you hear echoes, you're right. While not as thrilling or mysterious as the first episode, the story is still entertaining, if just for having another encounter with the engagingly insecure and misanthropic Murderbot ("So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects."). Watching Murderbot struggle with the human world, is similar to that of any socially awkward anthropoid: "I wish being a construct made me less irrational than the average human but you may have noticed this is not the case." For me, however, the more Murderbot becomes human in Artificial Condition, the less compelling the story, the less I identify.  [3★]

Pavane for a Dead Princess by Park Min-gyu (2009)

A young woman and man become lovers, despite the stark difference in their appearance.

Book Review: Pavane for a Dead Princess not only has a magnificent title, but it was a story I've never read before. Park Min-gyu has an "interesting" sense of humor (be prepared) and periodically includes footnotes, sometimes for no apparent reason. Some parts are ostensibly written by one of the characters (there's a certain postmodern factor (hence footnotes) here), and those sections can fall flat, into cliche, or otherwise twist the story. We learn that "women are not fried chicken." Good to know. But the  writing can also be intensely beautiful: "Winter strips away the names of many things." Park creates levels within levels with his three main characters: the handsome "I," the homely "she," and their male friend Yohan. Similar to Haruki Murakami in his use of Westernisms, leaning more to popular music than jazz, but like the author of Norwegian Wood using Beatles music as a refrain for the novel. And yes there's a cat, a mysterious woman who disappears, cooking, train stations, and urban ennui. But unlike Murakami, who deliberately confounds, disappoints, and frustrates his readers, taking his novels into unexpected and intentionally unsatisfying directions, Park writes on a more human, more fulfilling and persuasive level, capable of meeting his readers' expectations even with unforeseen plot twists and unpredictable but intriguing characters. The language and voice changes constantly, giving a texture of different viewpoints, even from the same character. Park rails for pages, but in a straightforward way cloaked as two young intellectuals credibly dissecting Korean society. He aimed Pavane for a Dead Princess squarely at the Korean (and Western) obsession with consumerism and appearance. In a money-driven society, both beauty and the beautiful can be bought for a sum, as we're shown by the stories of the narrator's father and Yohan's mother, both unfairly attractive. If you think this is just a sweet love story, you read it wrong. But even his attacks on the shallowness and futility of Korean (and all consumer) society, are only a cocoon for the individual interactions and connections of the three main characters. Then Park creates an ending which is a prism for everything that went before, interweaving the sadness and happiness, the possibilities that are necessarily part of reality, and reminding the reader that fairy tales are only fairy tales. Pavane for a Dead Princess is a story that transcends culture, making it all too real even for Western readers. Tears are a distinct possibility.  [5★]