Could not get into this book. The "e" and "eir"'s distracted me and I found nothing compelling about the main character in the first few chapters.

Probably closer to 4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this book but it's a bit hard to quantify why. It does a great job of expanding the universe Leckie built in the Radch trilogy by introducing us to a few of the non-Radch human communities. I especially liked the Hwaean method of gender identity (unlike Radchaii, the main language of the Radch trilogy, the languages in this novel - Bantai and Yiir - have multiple gendered pronoun options) where all children are referred to by they/them pronouns until they choose an adult name and gender identity when they are ready in their late teens or early 20s (usually) at which point they are then referred to with "adult" pronouns - either she/her; he/him; or e/eir. ( )

Liked this one a lot! Fast moving story, likable and interesting characters. The only problem was with me--it's been so long since I read the (first two) Ancillary stories that I lost track of the universe and political background. Guess I'd better re-read them.
( )

This is the story of Ingray Aughskold, daughter of a planetary official, who has concocted an expensive, convoluted scheme to get her mother's approval and discredit her brother - by paying someone to help a convict escape. A large part of the plot revolves around how humans on the planet of Hwae obsess about souvenirs, mementos and artifacts, calling them collectively 'vestiges' and assigning far too much value to them. This all leads to Ingray getting stuck in the middle of a multi-planetary conspiracy that escalates. Ingray has to resolve events with the help of a few friends and her own wits.
The entire story is told from Ingray's point of view, and as an 'unreliable narrator', we only get her view of events - and she often does not know what is going on. While this is set on a far off planet and partially takes place on a space elevator, that's just the setting, it is otherwise almost completely lacking in science fiction elements, making this an interesting fiction story, but not science fiction. I thought the plot, which never really resolves and the science aspects needed a lot of work, otherwise this would have been better. ( )

content warnings: arachnids, body horror, murder

I really enjoyed reading another story set in the same universe as the Ancillary books. I don't like Ingray as much as I liked Breq, but she was an entertaining character to read about (especially after she stopped making every possible bad decision and started making a few smart ones). ( )