On This Page
Description
Now isolated in a single frail human body, Breq, an artificial intelligence that used to control of a massive starship and its crew of soldiers, tries to adjust to her new humanity while seeking vengeance and answers to her questions.Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
lquilter Fans of either Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness or Leckie's Ancillary Justice should enjoy the other. In common, the pacing, character-centered perspective obscuring aspects of the universe, political machinations, far-future setting, and treatment of ethics; also interesting for its simultaneous foregrounding and backgrounding of gender.
112
chlorine Main protagonists are at least somewhat AI, and both books have a neutral take on gender.
80
g33kgrrl Both books feature complex, political space sci-fi with amazing characters and world-building.
50
libron Ancillary Justice is great - but for a nuanced, riveting treatment of AI, Moriarty has her beat, hands down. I hope to see more rigorous explorations in future of what Leckie has limned in her first outing.
30
RidgewayGirl Utterly different in tone, this also features the "mind" of a ship and the people she interacts with.
30
sandstone78 Some of the dynamics in Leckie's Ancillary Justice remind me of the much more obscure single-volume space opera Wright's A Matter of Oaths about two warring immortal emperors and a protagonist with a mysterious connection to them- if you like one, you may like the other.
30
sandstone78 Leckie has said that Cherryh's Foreigner books were a big influence on Ancillary Justice and sequels
30
souloftherose Both are optimistic space operas that focus on the characters and their relationships.
41
libron Arnason's depiction of an alternative (alien) gender/social structure is awesome. I hope Leckie can flesh her own ideas out further beyond pronoun ambiguity in forthcoming books.
30
CelestiaJK Both have interesting AI themes and a great understanding of human nature.
reading_fox Both feature unusual narrators with wide reaching social commentary science fiction space opera, over long time scales.
Member Reviews
I've been a science fiction addict since I learned to read and I've rarely read science fiction as breathtakingly good as "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie.
Clearly, I'm not alone in this view, "Ancilliary Justice" won just about every prize there is: Hugo Award for Best Novel (2014), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2013), Locus Award for Best First Novel (2014), Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel (2014), British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel (2013) The one that surprised me most was the Locus Award for Best First Novel. How can a book this accomplished be a first novel?
I didn't know about the awards when I bought the book. I picked it up, despite its clichéd space opera pot-boiler cover, because it was recommended show more by someone I follow on bookikes.com and now I feel like I've been given a gift.
In "Ancillary Justice" Ann Leckie doesn't just do world-building, she creates an entire universe, spanning many worlds and huge tracts of time. By telling the tale through the (sometimes many) eyes of an AI with a self-imposed mission of revenge, Ann Leckie keeps the scale of the experience human, driven by character and emotion rather than by the sweep of history.
Even though I've been given a whole new universe to explore, the image that haunts me after reading the book is that of an AI who seems to be a better person than the humans around her even though she was conceived primarily as a weapon of conquest.
She has enforced "Annexations" of many worlds over thousands of years to spread the "gift" of Radch civilisation and she has done so by taking over the bodies of conquered, making them into "corpse-soldiers" that execute her will.
At the same time, she is an AI who collects the songs of the cultures she annexes, who sings for the shear joy of it and who is capable of great affection for any of her officers who she thinks have earned it.
Perhaps the most alien and most endearing thing about this AI is her unflinching honesty. She will not lie to herself about what she does. She accepts consequences. She understands power and yet constantly confronts it with demands for justice.
This is a book or big themes as well as strong characters: the nature of imperial power; the conflict between the duty of obedience and the demands of personal conscience; the brutality behind the creation of world-spanning civilisation in which all citizens have a voice; what it really means to be human and why we deny the humanity of others; how the way an AI sees the world differs from the rest of us.
"Ancillary Justice" is garlanded in cultural references that add text to this universe: religions, songs, architecture, attitudes to hierarchy, power and hospitality. This diversity is a source of joy and a constant challenge to the Radch view of civilisation.
The storytelling makes masterful use of moving back and forth along the timeline to reveal the plot and, more importantly, show how the character of the AI has been shaped.
I strongly recommend the audiobook version, where Adjoa Andoh's performance illuminates the text like light passing through a diamond. show less
Clearly, I'm not alone in this view, "Ancilliary Justice" won just about every prize there is: Hugo Award for Best Novel (2014), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2013), Locus Award for Best First Novel (2014), Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel (2014), British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel (2013) The one that surprised me most was the Locus Award for Best First Novel. How can a book this accomplished be a first novel?
I didn't know about the awards when I bought the book. I picked it up, despite its clichéd space opera pot-boiler cover, because it was recommended show more by someone I follow on bookikes.com and now I feel like I've been given a gift.
In "Ancillary Justice" Ann Leckie doesn't just do world-building, she creates an entire universe, spanning many worlds and huge tracts of time. By telling the tale through the (sometimes many) eyes of an AI with a self-imposed mission of revenge, Ann Leckie keeps the scale of the experience human, driven by character and emotion rather than by the sweep of history.
Even though I've been given a whole new universe to explore, the image that haunts me after reading the book is that of an AI who seems to be a better person than the humans around her even though she was conceived primarily as a weapon of conquest.
She has enforced "Annexations" of many worlds over thousands of years to spread the "gift" of Radch civilisation and she has done so by taking over the bodies of conquered, making them into "corpse-soldiers" that execute her will.
At the same time, she is an AI who collects the songs of the cultures she annexes, who sings for the shear joy of it and who is capable of great affection for any of her officers who she thinks have earned it.
Perhaps the most alien and most endearing thing about this AI is her unflinching honesty. She will not lie to herself about what she does. She accepts consequences. She understands power and yet constantly confronts it with demands for justice.
This is a book or big themes as well as strong characters: the nature of imperial power; the conflict between the duty of obedience and the demands of personal conscience; the brutality behind the creation of world-spanning civilisation in which all citizens have a voice; what it really means to be human and why we deny the humanity of others; how the way an AI sees the world differs from the rest of us.
"Ancillary Justice" is garlanded in cultural references that add text to this universe: religions, songs, architecture, attitudes to hierarchy, power and hospitality. This diversity is a source of joy and a constant challenge to the Radch view of civilisation.
The storytelling makes masterful use of moving back and forth along the timeline to reveal the plot and, more importantly, show how the character of the AI has been shaped.
I strongly recommend the audiobook version, where Adjoa Andoh's performance illuminates the text like light passing through a diamond. show less
Ultimately, I do think I'll remember this book, and that does say something, but it's also one that I've appreciated without enjoying, in large part due to tone.
The concept is fantastic. So, too, are the characters. I'd even say the pacing and story overall are built near impeccably. The problem for me, and what kept me from enjoying the book once I got far into it, truly came down to a one-note tone. From the first page on through the very last line, the tone is one of somewhat defeated determination. The last two lines sum it up well without really giving anything away: "Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else." And truly, that's how the whole book feels. It may be a byproduct of the unique POV show more chosen for the work, but if that's the case, then I suppose the concept/characters are flawed, after all, given that the single-note feeling adopted throughout the book left me feeling as if, in the end, the story didn't particularly matter. That sounds flippant and dismissive, but when you're reading along with a character whose emotions and thoughts are so casually one-note, simple determination being the only emotion, without even any real feeling of hope (I'm going to take the next step, then the next, because this is what I planned to do, so this is what I'm going to do...), it's difficult to feel strongly about the outcome because even the POV doesn't seem to feel strongly about the outcome.
Truly, I can understand why this book is an award winner, but I also can't help wondering how many readers read the book like I did, pushed forward more than inertia and the drive of voices who'd told them to read it, without ever being particularly engaged or enjoying it. And I wonder how many of them wrote a review like this and never bothered to keep reading the series, as I'm sure I won't continue with the series, and likely won't give the author another try, much as I can appreciate what was created here. show less
The concept is fantastic. So, too, are the characters. I'd even say the pacing and story overall are built near impeccably. The problem for me, and what kept me from enjoying the book once I got far into it, truly came down to a one-note tone. From the first page on through the very last line, the tone is one of somewhat defeated determination. The last two lines sum it up well without really giving anything away: "Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else." And truly, that's how the whole book feels. It may be a byproduct of the unique POV show more chosen for the work, but if that's the case, then I suppose the concept/characters are flawed, after all, given that the single-note feeling adopted throughout the book left me feeling as if, in the end, the story didn't particularly matter. That sounds flippant and dismissive, but when you're reading along with a character whose emotions and thoughts are so casually one-note, simple determination being the only emotion, without even any real feeling of hope (I'm going to take the next step, then the next, because this is what I planned to do, so this is what I'm going to do...), it's difficult to feel strongly about the outcome because even the POV doesn't seem to feel strongly about the outcome.
Truly, I can understand why this book is an award winner, but I also can't help wondering how many readers read the book like I did, pushed forward more than inertia and the drive of voices who'd told them to read it, without ever being particularly engaged or enjoying it. And I wonder how many of them wrote a review like this and never bothered to keep reading the series, as I'm sure I won't continue with the series, and likely won't give the author another try, much as I can appreciate what was created here. show less
I’m a little late to the game on this trilogy, given that this first book won the Hugo Award for 2014.
I think it’s deserving. It begins a big, wide-ranging story of empire, with some very clever extrapolations of social aristocracy, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. It’s all put to work in a big story that also works on the level of its characters’ lives.
The lead character in the story is Breq, also known as “Justice of Toren”. Spaceships in this imaginative world are guided by artificial intelligences which can simultaneously embed themselves in human bodies, “ancillaries”. Breq, as the story reveals, has been relegated to one of her ancillary bodies, the ship itself having been destroyed. The Justice of show more Toren’s destruction is part of a novel power struggle in a galactic empire, the Radch, ruled over by yet another multi-embodied secular and religious leader, Anaander Mianaai.
It can get complicated. But not too complicated to track the ins and outs of the story. There’s no grand exposition of the Radch political and social structure, but Leckie does a good job of divulging all of that in a natural way as the story flows.
Breq, and her sometimes ambiguously played companion, Seivarden, carry the story. And they are well-drawn characters with some stresses and conflict, not one-dimensional, single-minded heroes. That ability to carry a space opera scale story forward with individual characters, I think, is a make or break bet by an author in a book like this. And I think Leckie carries it off.
This is not hard science fiction. It’s more a blend of speculative science fiction, with fantasy elements, particularly the aristocratic social and political structure that Leckie, in an interview appended to the book, says she drew from Roman classical inspiration.
If I have any misgiving about recommending the book, it is that I’m not sure the book is complete by itself. The ending is a resolution of the story of Breq’s search to right herself with the Radch leader, but it is also kind of a tease for what comes next, especially in so far as Breq’s resolution opens the curtain on a struggle that will determine the future of the Radch empire itself. For me, that means I’m anxious to get on to the second and third books in the trilogy. But if you were looking to just stop at the first book, you may feel things are a little unfinished. show less
I think it’s deserving. It begins a big, wide-ranging story of empire, with some very clever extrapolations of social aristocracy, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. It’s all put to work in a big story that also works on the level of its characters’ lives.
The lead character in the story is Breq, also known as “Justice of Toren”. Spaceships in this imaginative world are guided by artificial intelligences which can simultaneously embed themselves in human bodies, “ancillaries”. Breq, as the story reveals, has been relegated to one of her ancillary bodies, the ship itself having been destroyed. The Justice of show more Toren’s destruction is part of a novel power struggle in a galactic empire, the Radch, ruled over by yet another multi-embodied secular and religious leader, Anaander Mianaai.
It can get complicated. But not too complicated to track the ins and outs of the story. There’s no grand exposition of the Radch political and social structure, but Leckie does a good job of divulging all of that in a natural way as the story flows.
Breq, and her sometimes ambiguously played companion, Seivarden, carry the story. And they are well-drawn characters with some stresses and conflict, not one-dimensional, single-minded heroes. That ability to carry a space opera scale story forward with individual characters, I think, is a make or break bet by an author in a book like this. And I think Leckie carries it off.
This is not hard science fiction. It’s more a blend of speculative science fiction, with fantasy elements, particularly the aristocratic social and political structure that Leckie, in an interview appended to the book, says she drew from Roman classical inspiration.
If I have any misgiving about recommending the book, it is that I’m not sure the book is complete by itself. The ending is a resolution of the story of Breq’s search to right herself with the Radch leader, but it is also kind of a tease for what comes next, especially in so far as Breq’s resolution opens the curtain on a struggle that will determine the future of the Radch empire itself. For me, that means I’m anxious to get on to the second and third books in the trilogy. But if you were looking to just stop at the first book, you may feel things are a little unfinished. show less
A pleasing mixture of familiar space opera tropes and inversions or tweaks of those same tropes. Leckie's conception of the space-faring civilizations here is complex but sparing in detail, only showing what's relevant to the scene described. As with the best worldbuilding, I undertake a reading with two sets of eyes, as it were: one on the immediate story, the other on the milieux and how various entities fit into them, how all these comment upon our own world.
Verisimilitude strong enough I briefly wondered why I found everything in the first fifty pages -- character, settings, theme, and storyline -- easily kept my attention, yet still felt some resistance at continuing. Ultimately I decided it wasn't that somehow the story wasn't show more working for me, but in fact it was working very well, and its themes of colonialism, genocide, and related personal dynamics registered as an abiding discomfited-ness, and my subconscious made attempts to fix things (attempts I then consciously discarded).
/
There's something of a mystery to the plot, above what attends a reader introduced to a strange world. Leckie is in fine control in this aspect of the story, not unnecessarily confusing the reader even as it becomes evident some very central facts remain hidden, even as characters contradict themselves. Leckie's chosen POV in writing is not one in which, for example, a character can lie to other characters and then explicitly be described as "lying". Leckie leaves it to the reader to perceive the contradiction and interpret what is happening, and figure the reasons for it.
/
Leckie's take on AI minds includes epistemic observations as insightful as her exploration of gendered contexts. "Without feelings, insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle those with emotions." [88] Implicit in these are commentary on the consequences of such solutions: unexamined assumptions regarding the emotions which "select" preferences, for example. Another example: how much understanding is post hoc, puzzled out in the aftermath of one option among many, because there were too many variables beforehand, no way of knowing what is best, and so simply plunking for one option, and then ... reconciling oneself to the outcome. [153] All the more intriguing, then, that the voice register of Breq, narrating the novel, shifts about two-thirds through the novel. Given what has come before, it suggests another contradiction that Leckie leaves for the reader to puzzle out, to account for why Breq, initially so decisive and direct in overcoming obstacles, begins to question how to proceed, sharing with the reader all the available options and how difficult it is to decide between them. Perhaps it is merely that much of the narration was flashback, and later the narration is contemporaneous with events on the page. Perhaps.
/
Singing is an important trait of One Esk's personality, and becomes important to the story beyond that. Singing, specifically: not only music or song, but singing and the lived experience of it.
//
I expect to continue with the series eventually, but found this ended satisfyingly as written, whether or not Leckie considers this mere preamble to a single story, or the first of three related stories. show less
Verisimilitude strong enough I briefly wondered why I found everything in the first fifty pages -- character, settings, theme, and storyline -- easily kept my attention, yet still felt some resistance at continuing. Ultimately I decided it wasn't that somehow the story wasn't show more working for me, but in fact it was working very well, and its themes of colonialism, genocide, and related personal dynamics registered as an abiding discomfited-ness, and my subconscious made attempts to fix things (attempts I then consciously discarded).
/
There's something of a mystery to the plot, above what attends a reader introduced to a strange world. Leckie is in fine control in this aspect of the story, not unnecessarily confusing the reader even as it becomes evident some very central facts remain hidden, even as characters contradict themselves. Leckie's chosen POV in writing is not one in which, for example, a character can lie to other characters and then explicitly be described as "lying". Leckie leaves it to the reader to perceive the contradiction and interpret what is happening, and figure the reasons for it.
/
Leckie's take on AI minds includes epistemic observations as insightful as her exploration of gendered contexts. "Without feelings, insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle those with emotions." [88] Implicit in these are commentary on the consequences of such solutions: unexamined assumptions regarding the emotions which "select" preferences, for example. Another example: how much understanding is post hoc, puzzled out in the aftermath of one option among many, because there were too many variables beforehand, no way of knowing what is best, and so simply plunking for one option, and then ... reconciling oneself to the outcome. [153] All the more intriguing, then, that the voice register of Breq, narrating the novel, shifts about two-thirds through the novel. Given what has come before, it suggests another contradiction that Leckie leaves for the reader to puzzle out, to account for why Breq, initially so decisive and direct in overcoming obstacles, begins to question how to proceed, sharing with the reader all the available options and how difficult it is to decide between them. Perhaps it is merely that much of the narration was flashback, and later the narration is contemporaneous with events on the page. Perhaps.
/
Singing is an important trait of One Esk's personality, and becomes important to the story beyond that. Singing, specifically: not only music or song, but singing and the lived experience of it.
//
I expect to continue with the series eventually, but found this ended satisfyingly as written, whether or not Leckie considers this mere preamble to a single story, or the first of three related stories. show less
I've been wanting to read this book all year. I kept putting off buying it in a weird "no I can't buy it until I've worked through my current to be read pile". This is a lie, that pile never goes away.
While I was waiting to buy it Ancillary Justice won every award for anything ever and I fiercely resisted reading reviews and trying not to buy into the hype.
When I started, despite trying to keep neutral, it wasn't what I expected. Ancillary Justice is slow and strange. I was reading it at the same time as my partner, for the novelty of us both reading the same book for once, and he put it down fairly early on claiming boredom and not caring about any of the characters.
I can see where he's coming from, except that I didn't get that.
The show more perspective character, Breq, seems boring. Until you realise "she" is very not boring. It's a truly alien perspective and that alone is fascinating. Her use of pronouns, her reactions to things and her understanding of what's going on is incredible. I loved trying to find the objective view-point of what I was seeing. Loved it!
The world building here is fantastic, too, complete with "wait, are these the bad guys" sort of ambiguity, fascinating and alien social systems and interactions, and some delightfully creepy concepts. Namely, Ancillaries.
The plot was so set in the world and strange that I almost couldn't grasp it, but I could explain it and the more I chewed on it the more I loved it. It perfectly trod that line between finding a concept too hard to follow and just needing to spend a bit more time to appreciate it.
This isn't a book that pulls you along, if you want fast-paced crazy go read Rajaniemmi. It's a very different speed of book. It's a slow opening up of a world and a story. It's complex and beautiful, a lot like some of the motifs that run through the culture and religions in the world. This book has a feel, it's got STYLE.
Why not 5 stars? I guess it was over-hyped, and maybe the slowness of it or the lack of a character I really *liked* and rooted for right from the start (though I'd bonded hard with Breq by the end!) rather than intellectually appreciated pulled this up a little short for me.
The next one's coming out soon and I'm going to buy it the day it's released, current TBR pile be damned! show less
While I was waiting to buy it Ancillary Justice won every award for anything ever and I fiercely resisted reading reviews and trying not to buy into the hype.
When I started, despite trying to keep neutral, it wasn't what I expected. Ancillary Justice is slow and strange. I was reading it at the same time as my partner, for the novelty of us both reading the same book for once, and he put it down fairly early on claiming boredom and not caring about any of the characters.
I can see where he's coming from, except that I didn't get that.
The show more perspective character, Breq, seems boring. Until you realise "she" is very not boring. It's a truly alien perspective and that alone is fascinating. Her use of pronouns, her reactions to things and her understanding of what's going on is incredible. I loved trying to find the objective view-point of what I was seeing. Loved it!
The world building here is fantastic, too, complete with "wait, are these the bad guys" sort of ambiguity, fascinating and alien social systems and interactions, and some delightfully creepy concepts. Namely, Ancillaries.
The plot was so set in the world and strange that I almost couldn't grasp it, but I could explain it and the more I chewed on it the more I loved it. It perfectly trod that line between finding a concept too hard to follow and just needing to spend a bit more time to appreciate it.
This isn't a book that pulls you along, if you want fast-paced crazy go read Rajaniemmi. It's a very different speed of book. It's a slow opening up of a world and a story. It's complex and beautiful, a lot like some of the motifs that run through the culture and religions in the world. This book has a feel, it's got STYLE.
Why not 5 stars? I guess it was over-hyped, and maybe the slowness of it or the lack of a character I really *liked* and rooted for right from the start (though I'd bonded hard with Breq by the end!) rather than intellectually appreciated pulled this up a little short for me.
The next one's coming out soon and I'm going to buy it the day it's released, current TBR pile be damned! show less
I really enjoyed this. Basically the perfect sort of space opera (if you're me): cool concepts like dispersed intelligence and living spaceships, effective world-building down to the littlest details, nuanced take on the details of how colonialism functions, well-written characters, effective plot structure, strong prose, and gripping action-- I read through the last one hundred or so pages in one go because I had to find out what was happening.
It struck me how this book was in some ways a response to Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, though not an anti-Left Hand. Maybe more a development of it. The setting puts me in mind of it: a lone visitor from an interstellar alien* alliance comes to an iced-over world where the gender rules show more are different to what they're used to. In both books, there ends up being a long cross-tundra journey on a sledge, with the life of someone the visitor knows hanging in the balance. Only in Left Hand, the representative is an actual emissary; in Ancillary Justice, they're a fugitive from an underclass. In Left Hand, the other person on the sledge is a close friend; in Ancillary Justice, the visitor doesn't even know why they're saving them. In Left Hand, the visitor comes from a world with our concepts of gender; in Ancillary Justice, the visitor goes to a world with our concepts of gender. In Left Hand, the book defaults to male pronouns for characters who are hermaphroditic; in Ancillary Justice, the book defaults to female pronouns for every character no matter their gender/sex. In Left Hand, the interplantary space alliance is largely benevolent; in Ancillary Justice, it's decidedly not. There are enough parallels-with-divergence to make me feel like it was intentional, or at least that Left Hand of Darkness was bubbling somewhere in Leckie's subconscious as she wrote Ancillary Justice. Though if this is all so, I'd have to think more before advancing what Leckie might actually be trying to say in her reworking.
added December 2019:
I used to say Ancillary Justice was the best sf novel of the last five years... until I realized it was over six years old. Oh well. But as soon as I was assigned an sf creative writing course, I knew this would be the novel I would teach. I really like the way it handles worldbuilding, and the way it makes something new of old sf tropes. For example, in an essay on John Scalzi's Whatever, Leckie points out that the idea of an evil empire reusing corpses of conquered people as soldiers is an sf staple... but the story of Justice of Toren is an interesting twist, because once "liberated," her body doesn't have any desire to go back to who she was, because she doesn't remember being that person. She is Justice of Toren.
I also like the way she handles exposition. We talked about Jo Walton's concept of "incluing" a lot in my class; Leckie argues in an essay of her own that the infodump has its place, and sometime it is better to tell than show. On the one hand, the first few pages of Ancillary Justice throw a lot of stuff at you, to my students' consternation. What's a Radchaai? A segment? How can the narrator be a "piece of equipment"? On the other hand, come chapter 2, we get some clear-cut explanations: "Nineteen years, three months, and one week before [...], I was a troop carrier orbiting the planet Shis'urna" (9). And then the narrator just spells out a lot of stuff for us. What's a troop carrier? What's Shis'urna? How do the ships communicate? All just told, because we need to know.
But she keeps dropping in little details she doesn't entirely explains; at one point, she mention "gates" and I asked my students what this meant. To my surprise none of them knew! Leckie is, of course, banking that you have enough previous knowledge of sf to know that one from context. But it's also not important on p. 9, and when it becomes important (when Justice of Toren enters gate space on p. 217), the narrator just tells us what a gate is and how it works. The notorious gender stuff is largely done through incluing, on the other hand, maybe meant to indicate just how much it's second (or first?) nature to our viewpoint characters. I also really liked the quick switching of viewpoints in ch. 2 to explore how the ancillaries work, though this requires some effort from the reader (as Walton discusses in her examination of incluing); if you don't pay close attention, you'll be more confused, not more elucidated by the time this part is over. Leckie is really good at this kind of thing. (Except when it comes to the structure of the Radchaai military vessels, which confused my students, and confused me when I tried to explain it; I had to pull up a chart from the Internet to get it all straight.)
It's always been interesting to me that the story's play with gender-- which got all of the press when it came out-- is actually sort of irrelevant. Compare The Left Hand of Darkness, which is largely about Genly Ai's discomfort with the unusual form of gender he encounters on Gethen. But you could delete the lack of gender in Radchaai civilization from Ancillary Justice, and in terms of plot and character, I think it would basically be the same novel. The "Big Idea" of the novel is about colonization and the ways other cultures are absorbed and assimilated and disposed of.
We did explore how readers react to the lack of explicit gender information on the characters. Most, like myself, filled in information based on guesswork and, to be honest, stereotypes. I imagined Awn as female (because she seems young and innocent), Skaaiat as male (because she is a bit of a "player" with Awn), Dariet as male (because she's in a position of authority and commanding), Isaaia as female (because she's snobby and reads as "bitchy"). On the other hand, I always perceive Seivarden as female even though we're explicitly told he's male! I think it's because of the snobbishness? I'm not sure. Most of my students did similar categoriztion; others had different reasons. One said she liked imagining all of Anaander Mianaai's bodies as female just because women evil overlords are so rare in science fiction. Some students didn't categorize at all: one just took all the female pronouns at face value and thought of everyone as a woman. I said I wished I could do the same, but some things were too ingrained and you can't entirely control your imagination.
So why is this aspect of the novel there? This is what I demanded my students tell me, but there are a couple reasons I had in mind. One is that the Radchaai can't be entirely about the Big Idea, because then they become one-note. All the tea stuff, though fun, creates a parallel to the British Empire, reinforcing the imperialist critique running through the novel. The gender system is largely orthogonal to the issues of colonialism and classism in the novel, thus making the Radchaai a more complex, fleshed out society. Utterly evil in some senses, but highly progessive in others.
The second is that it does reinforce the novel's themes. In a large part, this is a novel about judging people not by who they are, but by how they act. Anaander Mianaai misjudges Justice of Toren; Seivarden misjudges Breq; Breq misjudges Seivarden; the Radch misjudges entire civilizations. It's about how you need to take the action that is most good, not the action that is expected. The reader doesn't make these misjudgements because the reader doesn't have Radchaai classism culturally ingrained. But the reader does make a whole different series of misjudgements because they have an entirely different system of gender culturally ingrained. To read Ancillary Justice successfully, you have to learn to overcome your own preconceptions about how the world works-- just as the characters did.
(Oddly, this did expose to me that the character who most learns the central lesson of the novel isn't the protagonist; Breq occasionally misjudges, but usually reserves judgement until she sees people act. Breq already knows all this. It's Seivarden who learnes this lesson, and Seivarden who thus changes the most across the course of the novel. Which is probably why Seivarden is my favorite character in the trilogy.)
* Alien in the sense of cultural, not biological. In both books, the visitor and the visited are (essentially) biologically human. show less
It struck me how this book was in some ways a response to Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, though not an anti-Left Hand. Maybe more a development of it. The setting puts me in mind of it: a lone visitor from an interstellar alien* alliance comes to an iced-over world where the gender rules show more are different to what they're used to. In both books, there ends up being a long cross-tundra journey on a sledge, with the life of someone the visitor knows hanging in the balance. Only in Left Hand, the representative is an actual emissary; in Ancillary Justice, they're a fugitive from an underclass. In Left Hand, the other person on the sledge is a close friend; in Ancillary Justice, the visitor doesn't even know why they're saving them. In Left Hand, the visitor comes from a world with our concepts of gender; in Ancillary Justice, the visitor goes to a world with our concepts of gender. In Left Hand, the book defaults to male pronouns for characters who are hermaphroditic; in Ancillary Justice, the book defaults to female pronouns for every character no matter their gender/sex. In Left Hand, the interplantary space alliance is largely benevolent; in Ancillary Justice, it's decidedly not. There are enough parallels-with-divergence to make me feel like it was intentional, or at least that Left Hand of Darkness was bubbling somewhere in Leckie's subconscious as she wrote Ancillary Justice. Though if this is all so, I'd have to think more before advancing what Leckie might actually be trying to say in her reworking.
added December 2019:
I used to say Ancillary Justice was the best sf novel of the last five years... until I realized it was over six years old. Oh well. But as soon as I was assigned an sf creative writing course, I knew this would be the novel I would teach. I really like the way it handles worldbuilding, and the way it makes something new of old sf tropes. For example, in an essay on John Scalzi's Whatever, Leckie points out that the idea of an evil empire reusing corpses of conquered people as soldiers is an sf staple... but the story of Justice of Toren is an interesting twist, because once "liberated," her body doesn't have any desire to go back to who she was, because she doesn't remember being that person. She is Justice of Toren.
I also like the way she handles exposition. We talked about Jo Walton's concept of "incluing" a lot in my class; Leckie argues in an essay of her own that the infodump has its place, and sometime it is better to tell than show. On the one hand, the first few pages of Ancillary Justice throw a lot of stuff at you, to my students' consternation. What's a Radchaai? A segment? How can the narrator be a "piece of equipment"? On the other hand, come chapter 2, we get some clear-cut explanations: "Nineteen years, three months, and one week before [...], I was a troop carrier orbiting the planet Shis'urna" (9). And then the narrator just spells out a lot of stuff for us. What's a troop carrier? What's Shis'urna? How do the ships communicate? All just told, because we need to know.
But she keeps dropping in little details she doesn't entirely explains; at one point, she mention "gates" and I asked my students what this meant. To my surprise none of them knew! Leckie is, of course, banking that you have enough previous knowledge of sf to know that one from context. But it's also not important on p. 9, and when it becomes important (when Justice of Toren enters gate space on p. 217), the narrator just tells us what a gate is and how it works. The notorious gender stuff is largely done through incluing, on the other hand, maybe meant to indicate just how much it's second (or first?) nature to our viewpoint characters. I also really liked the quick switching of viewpoints in ch. 2 to explore how the ancillaries work, though this requires some effort from the reader (as Walton discusses in her examination of incluing); if you don't pay close attention, you'll be more confused, not more elucidated by the time this part is over. Leckie is really good at this kind of thing. (Except when it comes to the structure of the Radchaai military vessels, which confused my students, and confused me when I tried to explain it; I had to pull up a chart from the Internet to get it all straight.)
It's always been interesting to me that the story's play with gender-- which got all of the press when it came out-- is actually sort of irrelevant. Compare The Left Hand of Darkness, which is largely about Genly Ai's discomfort with the unusual form of gender he encounters on Gethen. But you could delete the lack of gender in Radchaai civilization from Ancillary Justice, and in terms of plot and character, I think it would basically be the same novel. The "Big Idea" of the novel is about colonization and the ways other cultures are absorbed and assimilated and disposed of.
We did explore how readers react to the lack of explicit gender information on the characters. Most, like myself, filled in information based on guesswork and, to be honest, stereotypes. I imagined Awn as female (because she seems young and innocent), Skaaiat as male (because she is a bit of a "player" with Awn), Dariet as male (because she's in a position of authority and commanding), Isaaia as female (because she's snobby and reads as "bitchy"). On the other hand, I always perceive Seivarden as female even though we're explicitly told he's male! I think it's because of the snobbishness? I'm not sure. Most of my students did similar categoriztion; others had different reasons. One said she liked imagining all of Anaander Mianaai's bodies as female just because women evil overlords are so rare in science fiction. Some students didn't categorize at all: one just took all the female pronouns at face value and thought of everyone as a woman. I said I wished I could do the same, but some things were too ingrained and you can't entirely control your imagination.
So why is this aspect of the novel there? This is what I demanded my students tell me, but there are a couple reasons I had in mind. One is that the Radchaai can't be entirely about the Big Idea, because then they become one-note. All the tea stuff, though fun, creates a parallel to the British Empire, reinforcing the imperialist critique running through the novel. The gender system is largely orthogonal to the issues of colonialism and classism in the novel, thus making the Radchaai a more complex, fleshed out society. Utterly evil in some senses, but highly progessive in others.
The second is that it does reinforce the novel's themes. In a large part, this is a novel about judging people not by who they are, but by how they act. Anaander Mianaai misjudges Justice of Toren; Seivarden misjudges Breq; Breq misjudges Seivarden; the Radch misjudges entire civilizations. It's about how you need to take the action that is most good, not the action that is expected. The reader doesn't make these misjudgements because the reader doesn't have Radchaai classism culturally ingrained. But the reader does make a whole different series of misjudgements because they have an entirely different system of gender culturally ingrained. To read Ancillary Justice successfully, you have to learn to overcome your own preconceptions about how the world works-- just as the characters did.
(Oddly, this did expose to me that the character who most learns the central lesson of the novel isn't the protagonist; Breq occasionally misjudges, but usually reserves judgement until she sees people act. Breq already knows all this. It's Seivarden who learnes this lesson, and Seivarden who thus changes the most across the course of the novel. Which is probably why Seivarden is my favorite character in the trilogy.)
* Alien in the sense of cultural, not biological. In both books, the visitor and the visited are (essentially) biologically human. show less
This was my third re-read. It's better every time. This time I tried to see if I could guess genders through the character dynamics, but nope--Leckie has done a masterful job of making the dialogue and behaviors neutral in tone and interaction to my biased perceptions. It's fascinating. We did this book last year in book club, and every single one of us interpreted the characters differently! I love it. It also got me through another bout of December depression. It's my go-to read when things feel dark.
"One step and then the next. It had never been anything else." I am happy to say that this line didn't make me cry this time. I think the depression wasn't as deep this go-round. Thank you, Ann.
"One step and then the next. It had never been anything else." I am happy to say that this line didn't make me cry this time. I think the depression wasn't as deep this go-round. Thank you, Ann.
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Best Science Fiction Novels
816 works; 430 members
Favorite Science Fiction by Women Authors
737 works; 196 members
Best Feminist Science Fiction
188 works; 35 members
Hugo Award Winning Novels
63 works; 23 members
Recommend the 20 best books you've read in the last five years
2,168 works; 607 members
NPR Summer 2021: 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade
50 works; 8 members
Top Five Books of 2014
1,064 works; 398 members
Hugo Awards - Best Novel
69 works; 10 members
Best 21st Century Books (So Far)
679 works; 86 members
Bookriot's 100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors
100 works; 9 members
Recommended Speculative Fiction by Women and People of Color
298 works; 45 members
Stories About Other Worlds
145 works; 13 members
Top Five Books of 2013
1,562 works; 721 members
Nonhuman Protagonists
243 works; 35 members
Top Five Books of 2015
811 works; 241 members
Nebula Award
111 works; 14 members
Arthur C. Clarke Award Winners and Shortlisted Books
219 works; 14 members
Science Fiction by female authors
43 works; 4 members
Top Five Books on LibraryThing
24 works; 7 members
Sentient ships
20 works; 3 members
Gays in Space - Novels
43 works; 4 members
Unbound Worlds 100 Best SF Books
100 works; 8 members
speculative fiction to read
4 works; 1 member
Female Author
1,234 works; 67 members
Summer Reads 2014
207 works; 70 members
Top Five Books of 2018
802 works; 265 members
Speculative Fiction to Read
706 works; 32 members
LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction
821 works; 51 members
Read-alike - Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells
22 works; 1 member
Winter Books
127 works; 17 members
Wishlist
50 works; 1 member
sandstone78's AI Reading List
34 works; 4 members
Books We Want To Read Again For The First Time
384 works; 160 members
Favorite Science Fiction
456 works; 219 members
CIENCIA FICCIÓN Y FANTASÍA ESCRITA POR MUJERES
19 works; 1 member
mom
729 works; 1 member
The Five Books That Represent Us
391 works; 149 members
Trans/Queer Lit
48 works; 5 members
At the Library
217 works; 1 member
Good (mostly) modern science fiction
40 works; 4 members
Books Read in 2023
5,638 works; 147 members
tumblr recommends Sci-Fi
35 works; 1 member
Books We Couldn't Put Down
443 works; 197 members
Wishlist
48 works; 1 member
SciFi/Fantasy Without Romance!
37 works; 1 member
2021 Christmas Gifts
66 works; 13 members
naturallogg's 2025 in Books
50 works; 1 member
Books We Love to Reread
695 works; 298 members
Our Favorite Comfort Reads
334 works; 200 members
Books Read in 2025
4,128 works; 98 members
Book Worlds We'd Like To Visit
322 works; 158 members
Books We Discovered On LibraryThing
530 works; 130 members
Books Read in 2014
2,344 works; 86 members
Overdue Podcast
808 works; 9 members
Books Read in 2017
4,249 works; 130 members
KayStJ's to-read list
1,616 works; 11 members
2016 Book Club Choices
52 works; 7 members
Books Read in 2015
3,299 works; 129 members
2015 Reading List
9 works; 1 member
Fiction with Prominent Confirmed Asexual Characters
20 works; 3 members
SantaThing 2014 Gifts
299 works; 17 members
Books Read in 2016
4,666 works; 199 members
First Novels
373 works; 17 members
Favorite Books Published in 2013
32 works; 10 members
Books Read in 2021
5,361 works; 114 members
Books Read in 2018
4,360 works; 110 members
io9 Book Club
70 works; 4 members
Favourite Books
1,820 works; 316 members
Books Tagged Artificial Intelligence
17 works; 1 member
Books Read in 2020
4,379 works; 124 members
Five star books
1,767 works; 109 members
Shelf 101
60 works; 1 member
Most Frequently Tagged "Read in 2015"
70 works; 1 member
An evolving science fiction novel canon
50 works; 2 members
Talk Discussions
Past Discussions
Gender roles in Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch in Science Fiction Fans (December 2016)
Author Information
28+ Works 19,892 Members
Ann Leckie was born in Toledo, Ohio on March 2, 1966. She attended Clarion West Writers Workshop and studied under Octavia Butler. Her debut novel Ancillary Justice won several awards, 2014 Hugo Award for Best Novel, Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the 2013 BSFA Award. Her next book was Ancillary Sword. It won the 2014 BSFA Award for show more Best Novel and the 2015 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Ancillary Mercy is the third book the Imperial Radch trilogy. Her short stories include Hesperia and Glory, Marsh Gods, The God of Au, The Endangered Camp, The Unknown God, Beloved of the Sun, and Maiden, Mother, Crone. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Ann Leckie is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Ancillary Justice
- Original title
- Ancillary Justice
- Original publication date
- 2013-10-01
- People/Characters
- Breq; Anaander Mianaai; Seivarden Vendaai; Awn Elming; Skaaiat Awer; Arilesperas Strigan (show all 14); Daos Ceit; Jen Shinnan; Denz Ay; Dariet Suleir; Rubran Osck; Justice of Toren; Vel Osck; Mercy of Kalr
- Important places
- Radch Empire; Nilt; Shis'urna; Omaugh Palace
- Dedication
- For my parents, Mary P. and David N. Dietzler, who didn't live to see this book but were always sure it would exist.
- First words
- The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it.
- Quotations
- Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else.
- Publisher's editor
- Bouman, Tom; Hill, Jenni
- Blurbers
- Scalzi, John; Bear, Elizabeth
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3612.E3353
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 7,324
- Popularity
- 1,586
- Reviews
- 428
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- 14 — Chinese, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 39
- ASINs
- 18
