Providence

Providence by Max Barry, 306 pages

Several years after first contact with aliens, humans are now in an interminable war with the hive-like species they've dubbed "salamanders." Thankfully, humankind has some very high-tech interstellar warships, run by artificial intelligence so good that a crew of just four can run a successful mission against thousands of salamander ships. But despite (or perhaps because of) the light workload, the human crew members have a difficult time dealing with the long hours in space, punctuated by short battles in which they merely monitor the ship's systems. It gives them too much time to think about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and whether the ship is really their "friend" in this war.

Barry's written quite the pageturner here, with plenty of action-packed battle sequences and a suitably creepy alien villain. But it's also a fascinating look at the psychology of war and space travel, as well as thought-provoking in regard to what is or isn't a person. It's a lot packed into a thrilling read. Highly recommended.