One of the best sci-fi books no one knows of is Sam J Lundwall's "No Time for Heroes", a brilliant satirical dystopia in which a very reluctant army 'hero' Bernhard Rordin is shot off to a strange world accompanied by a commercially sponsored intelligent 'Robofriend'. In times of great stress, what Bernhard gets from the metal spider-like creature are brand jingles, upbeat marching music, a snitch on his behavior to his military superiors, and various product offers.

What's a hundred thousand years more or less to the universe? To ex-private Bernhard breaking rocks on a prison planet, every day felt like eternity. To the myriads of people, robots, and self thinking servo-mechanisms aboard the twenty thousand mile long spaceship Refanut, it seemed like just another day on their endless trip. But when Bernhard escaped to the Refanut, things changed sharply. For all the machinery on the fabulous starship—pride of a long forgotten galactic empire—had been accidentally programmed to adore Bernhard—and all its people would just as gladly cut his throat.