STG's

All Systems Red: The MurderBot Diaries, by Martha Wells is a SF novella, the first of The MurderBot Diaries. It got a bunch of awards, and have been in my suggestion lists for quite a while, so I decided to check it out. The story is about a secUnit, which is a conscious mix of organic and mechanic parts made in a very humanoid form to do security of planetary survey teams. Basically a slave. It hacks its governor, so that it doesn't have to obey orders. Then all hell breaks lose and it decides to help, just because it can. It was pretty good. It seems fair that it won all those awards.

Some people recently suggested that I should check out the Culture series. Looking online, it was frequently suggested that I start with  Player of Games,   by Iain M. Banks. I'm glad I took that suggestion. The book is very good, and full of interesting tech and ideas. The twists in the end were pretty good too. Barely shows its age, which is pretty impressive for a 1988 SF book. One thing that probably helps is that a lot of the tech is understated, and not even described until it is used. Very much worth reading, and I will definitely be reading more of the Culture series.