I don’t know if many of you keep track of who the publisher is for the books you read, but in general I don’t. There are so many! And the big publishing houses publish so many books it’s hard to keep track. There are a few exceptions for me, and today I’ll be recommending one in particular: Tor.com Publishing!

Hello friends! I hope you are all staying healthy and indoors – and relatively sane (as sane as we can be). I don’t know about you, but my reading has drastically slowed down because of everything happening. In March I only read 3 books, and April hasn’t been much better. I’ve been focusing on doing things that make me happy! And obviously reading makes me happy, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate and read sometimes.

As I said I’ve been trying to do things that make me happy – and by that I really mean reading or watching or playing things that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Like, all the cute feels. So I’m here to recommend a variety of things that make me feel that way, in case you also need recs for things like that!

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

I thought I had this series on my TBR for years but apparently this first novella was only published in 2017 lol. Well okay I guess that’s still 3 years ago! But still I thought it was longer. Anyway! I finally read the first novella today! And it was funny and enjoyable and relatable and I’m really glad I read it.

Let’s just start off with the first paragraph of the novella so you can get an idea of the tone.

“I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,00 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.”

Martha Wells, All Systems Red