Larry Niven’s “Known Space” has quite a few machines, but they’re generally not the point of the story. There’s a lot more about how human and non-human species relate and interact, and how the machines affect their behaviour and choices.

The whole approach of Puppeteers (technically brilliant cowards) and Kzinti (foolishly rash but honourable risk-takers), taken against human approaches is well-written.

Of course, once you comprehend its size, the Ringworld itself overwhelms a lot of the rest of the stories 😲.

Niven’s attitude to women and sex haven’t aged well…

But the stories are pretty good. He knows how to set multiple threads on their way and bind them up together at the end, or at least leave a decent cliff-hanger for a sequel.