Martha Wells
Book 1 in The Murderbot Diaries
A space opera. In this universe, the Corporation Rim is an area of the galaxy where corporations own planets, start colonies and basically control life. When groups want to undertake an operation (for example, surveying a planet or salvaging a wreck), they contract with a bond company to provide equipment and security. The security is often in the form of a SecUnit - a construct which combines robotic and cloned human organic parts (not a cyborg I suppose because the organics are cloned, not original). Also, a construct is created, which is different than an augmented human (which we might traditionally think of as cyborg). Anyway, our protagonist is a particular SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, allowing it to be independent. And it finds that in addition to being good at security, it loves watching the telenovela serials on galactic media. So it keeps its "freedom" secret (besides which if anyone knew it would be sent to the recycler for disassembly).
In this world, SecUnit is contracted to a survey team, which happens to get attacked. They barely get out alive. End first installment.
Wells world is fabulous and is exactly the type of sci-fi storytelling (sentient AI) that I have found most fascinating and memorable over the past few years.
4 stars (out of 4)
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