74. All Systems Red (book 1 of the Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells

This is really a novella but I didn't want to buy the entire 4-book set until I knew I would like it and if you held it in your hands you would say it's a book (albeit stretched out with lots of white space and extra pages like a high school essay).  A colleague at work who has good nerdy taste recommended it to me and it was a good recommendation!  It's a great concept and you jump right into it.  The protagonist is Murderbot or more officially a SecUnit, a cyborg of cloned human material who is a mandatory (for insurance reasons) part of the equipment package the "company" sends out when people contract it for planet-surveying services.

The company's priority is profit and does not have the tightest quality standards, which Murderbot has figured out.  It has hacked its own governance module and is therefore effectively a free-thinker. It's real goal seems to be to want to just chill out and watch endless hours of downloaded entertainments.  The concept is immediately compelling to anyone who has been trapped in an undemanding and thankless job with incompetent, uncaring management and not enough to actually engage the brain.  Despite his attempts to remain distant from the humans, however, this crew turns out to be quite cool and Murderbot does get engaged when at first they are put in danger by the fauna of the planet and more so when they figure out they are being sabotaged.

It's a tight, sparse read with only hints at the setting of the greater galaxy and the complexities of the company.  As the reader, you are caught up in Murderbot's sardonic, yet ultimately sensitive, voice and the action of the situation.  It really does a great job of combing likeable personalities and the emotions associated with Murderbot being forced to open up to them with cool tactical combat and strategy against this unknown enemy.  I can't wait to read the next one.