Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. I thought the space opera genre was dead. I spoke too soon (though some would call it literary scifi instead). Most enjoyable science fiction I’ve read in years, blasted through it in two days.
The main character is the last remaining fragment of a troop transport ship from the expansionist imperial Radch, which has absorbed a large fraction of the human diaspora at a time in which most people think about the home world of humanity the way most people think about the finer points of australopith ecology today. Troop transports transport ‘ancillaries’ - Human bodies under their control. There is wireless hardware in their heads that moves information but that’s not really the mode of control. Ancillaries have also undergone what can be called an ‘ego transplant’ such that their sense of self is the same as that of the (intelligent) ship. The ship and all its ancillaries share an ‘I’ and act accordingly even when communication is cut off and coordination is difficult, much like split brain patients. A ship is nearly completely destroyed in an act of treachery, leaving only one living ancillary bearing its identity.
Things I loved (which may or may not do it for others):
Mythology and religion and culture galore, from many long separated worlds and from societies that have lived in space for just as long (to quote a friend, “i love how the book manages to get across how simultaneously pretty and ugly Radch culture is”).
Playing with language, with different things differently able to be expressed with different connotations in different languages and the main language spoken not having gendered pronouns (all being shown in English as ‘she’ when that language is spoken, and the main character having trouble with gendered languages and gender in general).
One of the strongest evocations of place and setting I have seen in scifi.
A narrator that doesn’t understand their own mind that well and is frequently in denial, forcing a show don’t tell style and reading between the lines.
All characters with rather extended sensoriums and communication options compared to humans today via various enhancements and implants as a matter of course.
The Lord of the Radch, a being using ancillary-style ego manipulation and wireless connectivity to maintain thousands of bodies across the empire in an asynchronous, yet still remarkably unified self for thousands of years despite any one body lasting only 200 or so. Identity is played with extensively throughout.
The ending is a bit rushed. Here’s hoping the sequel is good, it just arrived in the mail.
The ending is a bit rushed. Here’s hoping the sequel is good, it just arrived in the mail.
I thought the sequel was more boring. The structure of the books doesn’t really work very well as a series, I feel. The things that I found most appealing about Justice were the new kind of narrator (in the flashbacks, when the same events are described from multiple viewpoints of the same character), and the gradual puzzle of figuring out how the universe works. But at the end of Justice that’s all over, there is just a single ancillary left, and the whodunnit-mystery has been explained. So then Sword is a lot less novel, just another space opera...
Just finished it. I agree it was definitely not as good as the first one. It started out strong but then got kind of bogged down in the Fleet Captain pulling an Awn, the big conflict at the start of the novel is all but unaddressed, and it completely wasted Tisarwat’s potential. Still enjoyable in many places to me (I was bursting out laughing for several minutes at ‘this granite folds a peach!’) but definitely less so. Hopefully its middle book syndrome and the third can come back...
I didn’t like Ancillary Justice so much FWIW—I didn’t find the culture so compelling, and the lead’s morality was jarring to me (she seemed less like someone who was seeing the flaws in the culture she was raised in and more like someone who had always instinctively had a western liberal morality that they’d been suppressing to fit in).
Do you have a view on The January Dancer? I loved that—modern space opera, with some interesting cultures, but also a compelling plot on the sci-fi side.
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. I thought the space opera genre was dead. I spoke too soon (though some would call it literary scifi instead). Most enjoyable science fiction I’ve read in years, blasted through it in two days.
The main character is the last remaining fragment of a troop transport ship from the expansionist imperial Radch, which has absorbed a large fraction of the human diaspora at a time in which most people think about the home world of humanity the way most people think about the finer points of australopith ecology today. Troop transports transport ‘ancillaries’ - Human bodies under their control. There is wireless hardware in their heads that moves information but that’s not really the mode of control. Ancillaries have also undergone what can be called an ‘ego transplant’ such that their sense of self is the same as that of the (intelligent) ship. The ship and all its ancillaries share an ‘I’ and act accordingly even when communication is cut off and coordination is difficult, much like split brain patients. A ship is nearly completely destroyed in an act of treachery, leaving only one living ancillary bearing its identity.
Things I loved (which may or may not do it for others):
Mythology and religion and culture galore, from many long separated worlds and from societies that have lived in space for just as long (to quote a friend, “i love how the book manages to get across how simultaneously pretty and ugly Radch culture is”).
Playing with language, with different things differently able to be expressed with different connotations in different languages and the main language spoken not having gendered pronouns (all being shown in English as ‘she’ when that language is spoken, and the main character having trouble with gendered languages and gender in general).
One of the strongest evocations of place and setting I have seen in scifi.
A narrator that doesn’t understand their own mind that well and is frequently in denial, forcing a show don’t tell style and reading between the lines.
All characters with rather extended sensoriums and communication options compared to humans today via various enhancements and implants as a matter of course.
The Lord of the Radch, a being using ancillary-style ego manipulation and wireless connectivity to maintain thousands of bodies across the empire in an asynchronous, yet still remarkably unified self for thousands of years despite any one body lasting only 200 or so. Identity is played with extensively throughout.
The ending is a bit rushed. Here’s hoping the sequel is good, it just arrived in the mail.
I thought the sequel was more boring. The structure of the books doesn’t really work very well as a series, I feel. The things that I found most appealing about Justice were the new kind of narrator (in the flashbacks, when the same events are described from multiple viewpoints of the same character), and the gradual puzzle of figuring out how the universe works. But at the end of Justice that’s all over, there is just a single ancillary left, and the whodunnit-mystery has been explained. So then Sword is a lot less novel, just another space opera...
Just finished it. I agree it was definitely not as good as the first one. It started out strong but then got kind of bogged down in the Fleet Captain pulling an Awn, the big conflict at the start of the novel is all but unaddressed, and it completely wasted Tisarwat’s potential. Still enjoyable in many places to me (I was bursting out laughing for several minutes at ‘this granite folds a peach!’) but definitely less so. Hopefully its middle book syndrome and the third can come back...
I didn’t like Ancillary Justice so much FWIW—I didn’t find the culture so compelling, and the lead’s morality was jarring to me (she seemed less like someone who was seeing the flaws in the culture she was raised in and more like someone who had always instinctively had a western liberal morality that they’d been suppressing to fit in).
Do you have a view on The January Dancer? I loved that—modern space opera, with some interesting cultures, but also a compelling plot on the sci-fi side.
Which lead do you speak of? The officer or the ship?
I can’t say I’ve read that one! Great, the list expands.
The ship