I just finished the fifth in the Murderbot Diaries, a fast-paced science-fiction series by Martha Wells about a rogue construct (like a cyborg, but ‘born’ that way) who just wants to watch its shows and not talk to humans about its feelings, but who keeps ending up in situations where everything seems to want to kill its humans.

The first four books in the Murderbot Diaries series are wait-listed right now in Libby/OverDrive, so let’s talk about another awesome series by Martha Wells, The Books of the Raksura, all seven of which are available now from Hoopla Digital. Start with The Cloud Roads.

Moon is an orphaned shapeshifter in a world populated with tons of different peoples, but the only other shapeshifters he knows about are the malevolent Fell, who raze cities and eat their occupants. So Moon has to hide what he is or end up running for his life. Until one day when he is rescued by another shapeshifter, Stone, who tells Moon that their people are called Raksura. Stone offers Moon a place in the Indigo Cloud court, but there are disturbing sightings of Fell in the region…

So begins an epic adventure in an alien, but completely relatable, community of shapeshifters who can fly. They make friends with ‘groundlings’ and work together (mostly) to fend off the villainous Fell. There are ‘mountain trees’ and flying ships and ancient cities with deadly secrets and, along the way, Moon finds and makes his own family and purpose.