Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Synopsis
The Radch Empire stretches across the galaxy, expanding over the last two thousand years. They consider themselves superior to all other humans, and conquer other planets by "annexation", where people can either submit to rule, or die and have their bodies used as ancillaries, which are essentially corpses with an artificial intelligence downloaded into them.
Justice of Toren is a starship with a self-aware AI system, thousands of years old. Justice is also manifest as an ancillary named One Esk, sometimes other ancillaries. There is a division within the highest ranks of the Empire, and treason and betrayal rip everything away, leaving Justice of Toren with only one human body/ancillary. Going by the name of Breq, she seeks revenge for what was done to her and those she cares about. While she is tracking down a person necessary to her plan, she comes across someone from her past, Seivarden, a captain who she supremely dislikes, but may be the key she needs in carrying out her vengeance. If she succeeds, the result may be the downfall of the entire empire and Radch civilization.
Review
An incredible example of a space opera. The characters are well-written, the world is huge and intricately detailed, the plot is compelling, and it tackles some heavy ethics, morals, and philosophy. This book won the Hugo Award for 2014, so I knew it would be at least decent going into it. The story is told across two alternating timelines, every other chapter: the present time with Breq on the trail of a person and coming across Seivarden, and the events leading up to the treachery.
The first thing I have to say is this story has incredible world building. Leckie doesn't explain everything right off the bat. In fact, it's almost a little confusing, with characters talking about events and people with no background context; essentially experiencing the world as the characters do. She provides explanations when needed, but the reader is expected to keep up and use their brain to fill in the gaps. The world had a feel of Firefly, but two thousand more years along.
There are several cultures that exist in this book, as the setting takes place across an entire galaxy. But each planet and culture is given such intricate details. We got from a swampy planet to an ice planet to a huge space station that may as well be a planet. The main character, either as One Esk or Breq, will fill in bits of information on local religion, culture, and language. As someone who studied linguistics, I love it when authors take the time to make the language detailed and real. Because the characters often speak different languages, Breq/One Esk sometimes explains how one word can have a slightly different meaning in one language than in the other, and the cultural effects that it has. There are also several religions, and the book shows how those religions influence a person's perspective and justification of various actions. Leckie also delves into the difficulties of the annexations of the Radchaai, and how local tensions and social castes can still have an influence. These are just small details that really drove home for me the scope of this world and realities of living in it.
The protagonist of Justice of Toren/One Esk/Breq is incredibly complex and fascinating and the author explores this fantastically. When the character is Justice of Toren, the AI inhabits multiple places, and multiple ancillaries, at the same time. Basically multiple viewpoints, but from the same person, if that makes sense. Sometimes perspective jumps between ancillaries paragraph to paragraph, but this is done in such a way that's easy to follow and isn't insanely confusing. I found it very new and different, and I liked it. I wanted to explore this concept more. Then, to complicate matters, she/they/it is/are having an identity crisis (Whew! Still following?). She is a spaceship, and yet she, the ship, is gone. All that is left of her inhabits this ancillary body, Breq. We get to see Breq having to act like a human, see her understanding of humans from her vast knowledge and experience, and yet she just isn't quite human.
There are also several main secondary characters, and they all show signs of depth and have character arcs and hard choices to make. They round the story out and make the world diverse.
One of my favourite things about this book was how it was bending norms and cliches and stereotypes we don't even necessarily think about. The Radch, the main civilization in the book, don't recognize gender in their language. The narrartor herself has trouble telling who is which gender when switching into other languages. I like it because it's new and different and has all sorts of implications for how that affects the society, where gender equality is so absolute that gender basically doesn't exist in their society. Everyone in Radch is referred to as "she" (a nice break from the norm in our society, where masculine is the default). Even though characters are of the male or female sex, they all go by one pronoun. We find out the actual sex of a few characters when other languages are used, but for most characters we don't. I realized while reading that I actually struggled with this--I wanted to know the character's sex and it bugged me when it was ambiguous. Which made me ask myself, why? Part of it is because I usually imagine the book as it's playing out in my head, and it made it hard for me to picture these characters, which also made it a bit difficult to identify and sympathize with them. But then I also thought, would it matter if this character were male or female? Honestly, it wouldn't, but then it made me think about how trained we are to sort everyone into these two categories. It was a very subtle commentary on the discussion that has been happening in our society lately. And I really like books that make me think about our own societal norms, what we're doing and why we have them.
The other thing I loved about this book was HUGE MORAL AND ETHICAL DISCUSSIONS! The story is filled with people put in bad situations where neither outcome is good. How do you choose what is "best"? Do you save your own life at the expense of another? Do you carry out an order that you know is wrong when saying no means they will still die, and you along with them? Breq/One Esk often says in the story that people shouldn't judge others' decisions because they dont know what it's like to be in that position until they're there. Also, when asked hypotheticals, she often says it's irrelevant because what happened has happened. An interesting view to bring up amid many of the social issues we face today, as well as those we look back on in history.
My only complaint about this book would be that the pacing was a bit slow at times. The build-up takes most of the first half of the book, and then the action finally gets rolling. That being said, all that build-up is necessary to the overall plot, and helps us not drown or be totally lost in this huge world. Also, sometimes the characters will be discussing something, trying to be discreet and ambiguous in story, but sometimes I felt like it was a little too ambiguous, where I didn't quite grasp the full extent of what they were trying to convey.
Overall, a norm-bending, interesting and action-packed space opera.
Rating
I give this novel 4 stars
Details
Genre: Science Fiction
Sex: It is alluded to that two characters are sleeping together, but there are no sex scenes and nothing graphic.
Violence: There are several scenes with mass shootings/killings, and also where some characters are forced to violently kill another character. There is talk of the brutality inflicted by the Radch Empire on the planets that they annex.
Language: Heavy swearing scattered throughout the book, including use of the F-word.
Synopsis
The Radch Empire stretches across the galaxy, expanding over the last two thousand years. They consider themselves superior to all other humans, and conquer other planets by "annexation", where people can either submit to rule, or die and have their bodies used as ancillaries, which are essentially corpses with an artificial intelligence downloaded into them.
Justice of Toren is a starship with a self-aware AI system, thousands of years old. Justice is also manifest as an ancillary named One Esk, sometimes other ancillaries. There is a division within the highest ranks of the Empire, and treason and betrayal rip everything away, leaving Justice of Toren with only one human body/ancillary. Going by the name of Breq, she seeks revenge for what was done to her and those she cares about. While she is tracking down a person necessary to her plan, she comes across someone from her past, Seivarden, a captain who she supremely dislikes, but may be the key she needs in carrying out her vengeance. If she succeeds, the result may be the downfall of the entire empire and Radch civilization.
Review
An incredible example of a space opera. The characters are well-written, the world is huge and intricately detailed, the plot is compelling, and it tackles some heavy ethics, morals, and philosophy. This book won the Hugo Award for 2014, so I knew it would be at least decent going into it. The story is told across two alternating timelines, every other chapter: the present time with Breq on the trail of a person and coming across Seivarden, and the events leading up to the treachery.
The first thing I have to say is this story has incredible world building. Leckie doesn't explain everything right off the bat. In fact, it's almost a little confusing, with characters talking about events and people with no background context; essentially experiencing the world as the characters do. She provides explanations when needed, but the reader is expected to keep up and use their brain to fill in the gaps. The world had a feel of Firefly, but two thousand more years along.
There are several cultures that exist in this book, as the setting takes place across an entire galaxy. But each planet and culture is given such intricate details. We got from a swampy planet to an ice planet to a huge space station that may as well be a planet. The main character, either as One Esk or Breq, will fill in bits of information on local religion, culture, and language. As someone who studied linguistics, I love it when authors take the time to make the language detailed and real. Because the characters often speak different languages, Breq/One Esk sometimes explains how one word can have a slightly different meaning in one language than in the other, and the cultural effects that it has. There are also several religions, and the book shows how those religions influence a person's perspective and justification of various actions. Leckie also delves into the difficulties of the annexations of the Radchaai, and how local tensions and social castes can still have an influence. These are just small details that really drove home for me the scope of this world and realities of living in it.
The protagonist of Justice of Toren/One Esk/Breq is incredibly complex and fascinating and the author explores this fantastically. When the character is Justice of Toren, the AI inhabits multiple places, and multiple ancillaries, at the same time. Basically multiple viewpoints, but from the same person, if that makes sense. Sometimes perspective jumps between ancillaries paragraph to paragraph, but this is done in such a way that's easy to follow and isn't insanely confusing. I found it very new and different, and I liked it. I wanted to explore this concept more. Then, to complicate matters, she/they/it is/are having an identity crisis (Whew! Still following?). She is a spaceship, and yet she, the ship, is gone. All that is left of her inhabits this ancillary body, Breq. We get to see Breq having to act like a human, see her understanding of humans from her vast knowledge and experience, and yet she just isn't quite human.
There are also several main secondary characters, and they all show signs of depth and have character arcs and hard choices to make. They round the story out and make the world diverse.
One of my favourite things about this book was how it was bending norms and cliches and stereotypes we don't even necessarily think about. The Radch, the main civilization in the book, don't recognize gender in their language. The narrartor herself has trouble telling who is which gender when switching into other languages. I like it because it's new and different and has all sorts of implications for how that affects the society, where gender equality is so absolute that gender basically doesn't exist in their society. Everyone in Radch is referred to as "she" (a nice break from the norm in our society, where masculine is the default). Even though characters are of the male or female sex, they all go by one pronoun. We find out the actual sex of a few characters when other languages are used, but for most characters we don't. I realized while reading that I actually struggled with this--I wanted to know the character's sex and it bugged me when it was ambiguous. Which made me ask myself, why? Part of it is because I usually imagine the book as it's playing out in my head, and it made it hard for me to picture these characters, which also made it a bit difficult to identify and sympathize with them. But then I also thought, would it matter if this character were male or female? Honestly, it wouldn't, but then it made me think about how trained we are to sort everyone into these two categories. It was a very subtle commentary on the discussion that has been happening in our society lately. And I really like books that make me think about our own societal norms, what we're doing and why we have them.
The other thing I loved about this book was HUGE MORAL AND ETHICAL DISCUSSIONS! The story is filled with people put in bad situations where neither outcome is good. How do you choose what is "best"? Do you save your own life at the expense of another? Do you carry out an order that you know is wrong when saying no means they will still die, and you along with them? Breq/One Esk often says in the story that people shouldn't judge others' decisions because they dont know what it's like to be in that position until they're there. Also, when asked hypotheticals, she often says it's irrelevant because what happened has happened. An interesting view to bring up amid many of the social issues we face today, as well as those we look back on in history.
My only complaint about this book would be that the pacing was a bit slow at times. The build-up takes most of the first half of the book, and then the action finally gets rolling. That being said, all that build-up is necessary to the overall plot, and helps us not drown or be totally lost in this huge world. Also, sometimes the characters will be discussing something, trying to be discreet and ambiguous in story, but sometimes I felt like it was a little too ambiguous, where I didn't quite grasp the full extent of what they were trying to convey.
Overall, a norm-bending, interesting and action-packed space opera.
Rating
I give this novel 4 stars
Details
Genre: Science Fiction
Sex: It is alluded to that two characters are sleeping together, but there are no sex scenes and nothing graphic.
Violence: There are several scenes with mass shootings/killings, and also where some characters are forced to violently kill another character. There is talk of the brutality inflicted by the Radch Empire on the planets that they annex.
Language: Heavy swearing scattered throughout the book, including use of the F-word.
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