Becky Chambers, A Closed & Common Orbit (2016), expands a plot element about AI from her first book into the central focus of this sequel. (implicitly?) picking up a plot from McCaffrey's classic The Ship that Sang, this is a compelling story of how an AI achieves it/her independence & their friendships that this entails. Once again Chambers has written an emotionally rich, unusual but highly timely SciFi.
