Ancillary Justice

High concept: In the future, starships are run by AIs which also control dozens or more previously human bodies known as ancillaries. Occasionally, the ancillaries get ... detached. Ancillary Justice follows the story of one such.

It's a really neat concept and does a good job of carrying the story on its own. It does make it a bit confusing at times to figure out who exactly is talking; a situation that is compounded by the fact that the story line jumps between a few different timelines and characters (or at least versions of the same character). Ever few chapters I found myself taking a moment to figure out what's going on.

It also doesn't help understanding in that the characters have odd names, many of which are very similar. It's hard at times to remember who is who. On top of that, the various ancillaries of a ship sometimes go by the ship's name (either to themselves or to others), so they literally have the same name.

On top of that, the plot takes a bit to get going. Things are already happening from the very first part of the book, but you (in my case at least) only realize what's going on about halfway through the book. Once you do though... the repercussions are intense. Galaxy changing.

All together though, it does what sci fi does best: takes a crazy concept and builds out the possibilities there from. I look forward to seeing where it goes next in the sequels. ( )

You know what, I can't do it. I need to wait, need some more time. This is a brilliant book, and a challenging one. I need to talk about gender and how this book handles it, but I need more time to think. I've already started the second so I'll wait until then. ( )

My second reading ... and once again, I am very impressed by the author's detailed and delicate world-building, but this time (perhaps not quite so dazzled by the imaginative pyrotechnics) a little underwhelmed by the lack of a strong, clear subtext to it all. To steal shamelessly from Gertrude Stein, I didn't come away with a sense that there is any "there, there" ...

I should, first and foremost, say that I loved this, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequels. And, perhaps, having done the heavy lifting of world-building and situation-setting, just perhaps future volumes will free Leckie to do more with the world she has built, and the situation she has set up. Leckie is to be complimented for giving this novel a satisfying, self-contained plot, and not resorting to that cheapest of cheap tricks, the "who didn't see that coming?" cliffhanger.

Perhaps future volumes will be able to do more with Why should we care?, and Why does this matter?, having so vividly established the world and the challenging social hierarchy that face the former ancillary Breq and the aristocrat-fallen-on-hard-times Seivarden. Both are, in their different ways, very satisfyingly fish out of water characters: Breq is the drone zombie-soldier (an ancillary) who has reluctantly, painfully been cut adrift as an isolated, independent individual when its primary personality, the massive troop carrier Justice of Toren, is destroyed in a fiendish plot to take over the Radch Empire. Seivarden is an arrogant young officer who once served on Justice of Toren, who has been in stasis for a thousand years, lost in deepest space when her subsequent command was destroyed and her escape pod went missing. She has been revived in a universe where her wealth and family connections have all vanished, and everything in the Radch Empire has changed out of all recognition. (She can't even understand the accents in the new Radchaai world she has woken up into.) Breq, who has made it her life's work to get revenge for the destruction of her Justice of Toren "self," its ancillaries and crew, and in particular one young officer who was her favorite, finds Seivarden when this lost soul has almost succeeded in getting herself killed through a combination of heavy drugs and poor life choices. Breq saves her, for reasons that Breq herself doesn't really understand (constantly reminding herself, "she had never been one of my favorite officers ..."), and together, this odd couple makes its way toward a face-off with the Lord of the Radch who is (and isn't: it's complicated ...) responsible for all this.

I really loved this, and trying to sum up the plot in less than a billion words, and without serious spoilers, has just reminded me just what fun it was, and how wonderfully Leckie has created a world of horrors and wonders, big McGuffins and small intriguing details. This is the Roman Empire, meets Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, meets the Padishah Emperors of Dune, with an interesting bit of Ursula LeGuin's gender politics thrown in for good measure. This is Space Opera for the 21st Century, and it is rather wonderful.

BUT: I am holding fast with my 4-stars, because I still feel that Leckie isn't entirely in control of that (to me) all important question: what is it for? For Banks, it was the possibilities of true socialism in a post-scarcity culture, and the troubling ethics of doing bad things to achieve noble, admirable results. For Herbert, it was the environment, and the way that a back to basics, sustainable society might triumph over a high-tech, exploitative empire. For Leckie ... I'm not sure. But there are lots of great possibilities there, so I'll just have to see. ( )

AIs, spaceflight, and an empire that seems a cross between Roman and Chinese. All basic needs met, but human life valued very lightly much of the time. ( )

I loved this book - it messed with my head, in a good way. It plays a lot with language, messing with social and gender constructs and even the concept of identity, to the extent that the main character sometimes has to clarify what she means when she said "I". But it pairs those challenging ideas with a compelling story, making it an excellent read. Confusing at times, but excellent. Highly recommended. ( )