This sounds trite, but Becky Chambers has managed to write the most human science fiction I’ve ever read. It has all of the world-building that good science fiction is supposed to have, but somehow Chambers has build a universe full of non-humans that is empathetic and tragic and romantic and, well, all of that.
A Closed and Common Orbit features two intersecting stories that I was pretty sure would connect, but I don’t think that Chambers intends that connection as a gotcha. Instead, we get a before-and-after of a broken person who, through the help of an AI and her own resilience, has managed to escape a horrific upbringing and can feel the type of empathy that helps her help others (and thus seek her own liberation).
The novel also features lots of AIs, and one even develops the ability to sacrifice itself (or at least its desire for a body). What Chambers does for the conversation about AIs may not be completely healthy in the short-term, but if SF is a way to envision the future, then hopefully we can envision a future with AIs where they don’t become terminators but instead become fully human in ways that the best of us imagine…