Ancillary Justice

Lots of potential and interesting ideas regarding AI, but I'm giving up on this one half way through. There just isn't enough meat on these bones for me.

Most of the time - enough that it's more like “all the time,” really - I have something to say about whatever I read. It's part of the personal mission statement I've decided for this whole book-review thing I've got going: read a book, and share my opinion on it, whether or not that opinion is good or bad. It's helped me think more critically about the things I read, which I was taught to do in my undergrad anyway, but it's one thing to have an opinion, and another to put it out there for the rest of the world to see.

But sometimes, I am rendered speechless. This is the most extreme response I can give any book: either it's so good I don't know what to say about it, or it's so bad I don't know what to say about it. As a rule, with the really, genuinely bad books, I just don't write anything at all, because I don't want to waste time and energy on something that wasn't even worth the time and energy spent reading it in the first place.

On the other hand, that time and energy is worth spending on a really good book, especially if I don't know the first thing to say about it. In such cases I wish I could just say “Just read the book” and leave the review at that, but that's not right. I need to be able to explain why I thought the book was so good, but the problem with such books is that I haven't the single foggiest notion of where to start. How does one even begin to explain such a book, when the true wonder of it can only be understood by reading it?

But I've got to try, at least. I've got to try to make sense of the muddle of my emotions and put them down into some semblance of coherence, because if I do, then maybe someone will read my words, and get the book themselves, and discover the same things I did when I first read it. And that's a really wonderful thing: that moment of revelation, when one sits up and realizes that this isn't just a “good” book, it's a great book.

This is why it's taken me a good few days to write this review for Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I'd finished the book on the eleventh, but it's taken me this long to come up with a good review for it because I needed to get my thoughts in enough order to actually write about it.

Ancillary Justice is about Breq, who to most people appears as an ordinary mercenary, hopping from job to job in a galaxy ruled by the Radch, for whom Breq used to work. But Breq is no ordinary soldier: once, long ago, she was the Justice of Toren, a battleship who could distribute her consciousness amongst hundreds of reanimated human corpses called ancillaries. But that is all in the past, because an act of treachery by someone to whom she owed her obedience has reduced her to one human body, one human consciousness, and one mission: the destruction of Anaander Miaanai, Lord of the Radch - and all of Miaanai's bodies, for the Lord of the Radch has more than one, and in order to get rid of her, Breq must kill every single one of them.

One of the first most noticeable (and most notable) things about this novel is its use of gendered language - or rather, its attempt to eliminate it completely. This is not so unrealistic, as there are languages currently in use that don't make much use of gendered pronouns, if at all (Filipino is one such example). However, English relies on gender pronouns when referring to individuals in the third person, so Leckie had to choose between “he” or “she” to use in the novel. Leckie uses “she,” which makes for some very interesting reading indeed, since it can be hard to tell if the person being referred to is a man or a woman. This parallels Breq's constant concern over what gender pronoun to use when speaking to someone who is not Radchaai (defaulting to “she” unless otherwise corrected), and only using gendered pronouns when speaking in another language.

The last time I read anything like that, it was The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, though the gender she used there was “he” and the race involved was completely genderless except during certain times of the year. This is different from the take in Ancillary Justice, wherein Radchaai individuals are biologically male or female, but culturally-speaking, the Radchaai do not think of gender at all: their language is gender-neutral, and the way they present and conceive of themselves is also equally androgynous. While I know how Le Guin's take on the concept of gender and gendered language was groundbreaking then (and in a way, still is today), I also like Leckie's take on it. Instead of creating a whole alien race, as Le Guin did, she simply takes humanity and makes a few tweaks here and there to create a culture that could, conceivably, exist in a far-flung future, when humanity is traveling on starships and conquering the rest of the galaxy. After all, at that point, the issue of gender could (or should, rather) be irrelevant, and culture and language will reflect that.

Another aspect of language that Leckie employs (and which Le Guin did, too) is that some words simply don't translate well from one language to another. There are some words in Radchaai that have multiple layered meanings - the word Radchaai itself means “citizen” denotatively, but connotatively it can mean a whole lot of other things, some of which are difficult to explain in a straightforward manner unless one is Radchaai oneself. People who only speak one language will have a hard time trying to comprehend the magnitude of this kind of thing, but people who are at least bilingual will recognize this problem easily, especially if there is a word in one language that perfectly encompasses a concept or idea, but which has no direct equivalent in the other language.

All of this means that some people might have a hard time getting into the novel. It takes a while to get used to the idea of “she” being a gender-neutral concept in Breq's language, and for a while one is likely to imagine all the characters, major and minor, as women. But eventually (usually after the fourth or fifth chapter), it gets easier to imagine the characters as simply being androgynous, which would be how the Radchaai present themselves anyway. At that point everything is more or less smooth sailing, as the quality of Leckie's prose then takes over and the reader is swept up into the story.

Another notable aspect of this novel is the way Leckie handles the multiple viewpoints of the ancillaries controlled by a ship's AI, as shown in the flashbacks Breq has of her past life as the Justice of Toren. It's complicated enough, characterizing an AI (and Leckie does this brilliantly, by the way), but splitting that AI into multiple bodies whose experiences are shared as a "hive mind" of sorts can be difficult to portray. Leckie, however, manages it beautifully, and though it might be confusing the first time the reader encounters it, it never gets completely out of hand, and everything makes sense if one takes time to read slowly and look for identifiers (usually in the form of the "names" of the ancillaries). Leckie is careful to keep a tight rein in the writing of the whole thing, so the reader is never truly lost. Again, as with the language, it takes a while to get used to it, but once the reader is accustomed to it, it's all smooth sailing and it's easy to once again get lost in Leckie's storytelling.

All of this, of course, speaks to some brilliant world-building, and this is very true. Ancillary Justice is one of those novels wherein the reader is made to work a little for information, to work for the image of the world that the characters inhabit. Nothing is left out, but neither is the reader spoon fed anything. It takes a while to put everything together because of the aforementioned issues regarding gender and language, but once those two aspects stop being problematic and fade into the background, it becomes immensely build the world of the Radchaai and of the galaxy they rule - and to understand the characters that inhabit it, particularly one Breq, once Justice of Toren.

Breq is a fascinating character, and as an AI a bit more sympathetic, in my opinion, than the AIs of Iain M. Banks' Culture series. That's saying quite a lot, because the AIs in the Culture books are very fun to read about. I suppose it might be because I haven't read all of the Culture books, and I have yet to encounter a book wherein an AI is the main character, but Breq seems more well-rounded, as a character, than the AIs in Banks' series. She's one of those characters who is easy to engage with, which is practically my primary requirement for any novel written in first-person perspective, and it's no chore liking Breq at all.

As for the plot, that is incredible as well: a wild roller-coaster ride that hops between past and present as Breq tries to explain what is happening and what she intends to do. I've read some reviews stating that Breq's plan to kill Anaander Mianaai is too simple, and therefore stupid - especially when one considers the fact that Mianaai has more than one body. But I think those readers are rather missing the point. Breq's plan is indeed simple, but it's not static: she builds on it over the course of the novel. The core of the plan remains - kill Anaander Mianaai - but it's no longer simply about the special gun that Breq went all the way to Nilt to find. The gun is a start; the rest of it becomes something much, much bigger, and something that, at least to Breq, is closer to the sort of vengeance she wishes to have.

Thematically speaking, Ancillary Justice asks some rather intriguing - and rather difficult - questions. There are obvious questions about gender, the self and identity, given the fact that Breq used to be part of a much larger consciousness that could inhabit more than one body at once and is from a culture wherein one moves through life without even thinking of gender in terms of binaries. But here are some other, harder questions: questions about class, privilege, power, and colonialism that are questions we still ask ourselves today, and which we will have to confront in the future if humanity does indeed head out into space.

Overall, Ancillary Justice is an amazing novel, picking up where writers like Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood left off. It can be confusing at first, given the language and nature of the protagonist, but getting past those issues is relatively easy given some time. It's not an easy read, but neither is it an overly complex one, either, and is well worth the initial bout of head-scratching that the first four or five chapters might cause. Beyond that point, what awaits the reader is an eminently readable story filled with fascinating characters and an equally fascinating plot, moving in a world that feels just as complex as the one we currently inhabit - albeit with massive ships powered by AIs capable of emotions like grief, who are also capable of going on years-long missions of vengeance against the one person to whom they are meant to owe their allegiance.

The only way to truly understand how wonderful this book is, is to read it, and that's all there is to it.

A great book - Leckie approaches the ideas of gender and individuality in a really unique way.

It lost a star for me as sometimes I found it difficult to follow exactly what was going on, and I also felt that the pace changed (got slower) in certain scenes toward the end which I didn't really like.

this book just didn't pull me in.

I absolutely loved this novel! The main character, Breq, is awesome. She not only provides an interesting point of view for the reader, but she is also very relatable–which is weird considering the fact that she isn't human, she's an AI. And that just goes to show how brilliant Ann Leckie's writing is (yeah, I'm officially a fan of hers now)!

I'm definitely picking up the next in the series (Ancillary Sword, I believe, although it's still in production). I seriously cannot wait until it comes out!! I probably haven't been this excited for a series since Harry Potter.

I would recommend all science fiction fans out there to pick this one up. I'll admit, it's a fairly complex book and might not be for everyone. The different points of view can be confusing and the use of pronouns is non conventional, but I really believe that it deserves a chance. The worse that can happen is that you end up not liking it, and that's not so bad.

Pros: fascinating premise, thought provoking, hard SF

Cons: Seivarden's personality changes a lot

Twenty years ago she was Justice of Toren, the artificial intelligence of a Radchaai spaceship with thousands of ancillary units at her command. Now she is simply Breq, a single ancillary. Her mission: to destroy the entity that reduced her to her present state.

This is a fascinating novel. It's predominantly told in chapters alternating between Breq's present and what happened 20 years ago when One Esk was stationed in the newly annexed city of Ors.

I liked the idea that the Radchaai language had no genderization (he/she), so Breq finds it difficult to determine the genders of people when speaking other languages, often guessing wrong. The use of ‘she' in the book for everyone made me question my own preoccupation with gender, as I first tried to figure out what gender all the characters were, with some difficulty. As the book wore on, I finally gave up, even though the correct genders for several characters were stated. Once I got used to the idea that the character's gender didn't matter, I found it oddly liberating not caring about what gender everyone was and simply appreciating the characters for their actions.

There were several quotes that spoke to me in the book, like this one by Breq about the actions of her ancillaries and officers who participated in a genocide:

“It's easy to say that if you were there you would have refused, that you would rather die than participate in the slaughter, but it all looks very different when it's real, when the moment comes to choose.” (p. 114, ebook edition)

The book definitely makes you think about identity and choices.

While there are jump gates to facilitate and speed up space travel, the book is hard SF in that it still takes a long time to get places. While you won't find detailed explanations of how the ship and station AIs work, there is enough information about it to create a good backdrop for the rest of the book.

While there is a plot, it's the character of Breq/One Esk that carries the book. She's such a fascinating figure that you read on just to find out more about her and her past.

I'm not sure I believed the extent of Seivarden's transformation from highborn snob to what he becomes at the end of the book, but I did appreciate what he went through and could see how such events would change a person a lot.

The ending was exciting and satisfying given what's happened in the story. It's open enough for the coming sequel but does stand on its own.

I highly recommend this book.

This was a good book but it is slow going. But there is a lot of world building which is very thorough. Some things are never really clear which takes a bit of getting used to. Mainly the fact of gender is never clear. But once you can get past that it is really good. The author uses flashbacks to explain some stuff which is interesting and helpful.By the end I really was into the book and could not put it down. It seems like there is room for a sequel.

This book started for me as a fascinating challenge in perspective shifting both with the change of personal pronouns and the multiple segment personality of the ship both when complete and when torn as Breq. Left there it would hVe been a good and fascinating story. But Ms. Leckie did not rest on that laurel. By the end of the book I was surprised to learn that not only had my brain been well accustomed to accepting ‘she' as irrelevant to the gender of a subject, but I was enjoying a rich and satisfying science fiction story of intrigue, and depth. This is without a doubt the best thing I've read all year and overhead some very excellent things.

Thoughtful and fascinating, an exciting new universe with very different concepts, and a brilliantly written story set in it. The only criticism I can level is that the end is a little to clean a setup for the series but then I can't wait to read them...

Every once in a great while, a book comes along that makes me very angry to have a job.

If I didn't have any responsibilities, I probably would have devoured this book in a solid, sleepless binge. It is that good. I have never read anything quite like it before, and the fact that it is Ann Leckie's first novel is an absolute shock.

The uniqueness is the main reason I'm so in love with it. The story is told from the point of view of a ship's ancillary, an AI in a human body, separated from herself by a series of events that unfolds smoothly as the story progresses. As such, her point of view is oddly unhuman, though never inhuman. She has emotions, grasps human thought, but she has to overthink her actions to appear human.

She's partnered by Seivarden, a former captain now drug-addict a thousand years removed from the current timeline. Seivarden's character is almost more interesting than the main characters, and the changes in this character and her/his relationship to the plot and to Breq kept me engaged whenever the story had to slow down.

What everyone is talking about, though, and the reason this is a five instead of a four is the story's treatment of gender. Breq is an AI and while seemingly in a female body (I think. At one point someone calls her “little girl,” but even that is questionable given Breq's inability to parse gendered terms) and she uses feminine pronouns and language as her default. Her “native” language has no gendered characteristics and she finds it incredibly difficult to guess the gender of others, a problem in societies like ours where the insult of using the wrong pronoun is huge. Leckie's decision to default female makes this book a stand-out. When I think of any other sci-fi I think of ships filled with male soldiers, male leaders, male protagonists. Leckie makes my brain automatically view every character first as initially female instead of the other way around. They I think only Seivarden is announced as a male character, though always referred to with female pronouns. As I read, I assigned gender to certain characters in the same way I might assign a hair color, a skin tone, a race. Things I choose based on my imagination that are in the end, unimportant to the plot of the story.

Making gender as unimportant as hair color is a truly significant feat, particularly in the male-dominated world of sci-fi literature. This feat is accomplished against a complex plot of political and actual warfare, a series of thoroughly developed world cultures, and the very human drama of our protagonist and her allies. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who loves sci-fi and wants a fresh take on the space opera. Read it.

Executive Summary: This is an odd one that may not be for everyone but that I really enjoyed in the end.Full ReviewI had never heard of [b:Ancillary Justice 17333324 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1) Ann Leckie https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397215917s/17333324.jpg 24064628] or [a:Ann Leckie 3365457 Ann Leckie https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1402526383p2/3365457.jpg] before about two weeks ago. If not for it being the November Sword & Laser pick, I may not have read it. I would have been missing out.This one was slow to grab me. The protagonist does not have one point of view but many. How you ask? Well it's a sentient ship made up of hundreds of mobile units referred to as Ancillaries. Just what is an ancillary exactly? It's not exactly clear at the start so, you'll have to read to find out.I'm not very well read in Sci-Fi, so I don't know if this concept of Ancillaries is new or derivative of previous works, but it felt very unique to me. It was hard to get accustomed to at first. The sudden swap of perspectives on the same scene can be quite jarring and confusing. As I'm only a solitary unit, and not a shared collective I don't think well that way.I don't recall if this is the first time I've read a book with an artificial intelligence as the protagonist, but the fact that I can't certainly shows it's something unusual for me. I think Ms. Lackie does a good job with it. It certainly doesn't feel human to me, but that doesn't make it uninteresting.I don't tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the books I'm reading while I'm reading them. I've seen/read far to many Movies/TV/Books over the years that when I do, it can ruin the experience for me. I tend to just “sit back and enjoy the ride” as it were and saving the thinking for when I'm done. This one was hard to do that though. There was a lot going on, I couldn't help but wonder and theorize.My only real complaint about this one is it takes too long for you to know what exactly is going on. The story alternates chapters between past and present until meeting somewhere in the middle and you finally have things click into place. I can see this turning people away from the book and missing out.There are just too many books out there competing for everyone's attention and it's too easy to put down something that doesn't grab you right away. Overall though, I really enjoyed this one and will be waiting for the next book in the series to come out.

It is no small feat that this is a novel narrated by a selfless AI who is also the most poignant personality. For me, books have flavors, superficial resonances that can usually be expressed verbally as “this books reminds me of FOO, but with BAR.”

What Ann Leckie has accomplished in her debut novel is to give us a story that has all of the flavor markers and hallmarks of a classic C. J. Cherryh novel from the 1980's, with the poignancy of a contemporary story. The novel is first and foremost a top notched space opera. But what has been fascinating for readers is that the language Leckie has chosen to use bring up questions of gender. This is certainly not the first book to talk to gender - even LeGuinn's Left Hand of Darkness wasn't the first genre book to go there. Leckie's fresh approach, though, is in giving us a future society where gender is rendered equal not by neutering it, but by neutralizing it. By removing the bisect of male and female and using only the female gender to reference everything, the society of the Radch blurs the line. By submerging Breq, our AI product of Radch society, into other cultures, we begin to see the how arbitrary some attributes of gender are, and how much they can complicate what should otherwise be a simple worldview.

One of the oldest tales is the tale of vengeance. What is justice, then, but vengeance wrought legal? But what if the system, the ruling mind that defines what is right and legal, is itself what has gone awry? Is the vengeance of ancillary component still justice? I am probably reading too much into this play of words between the title and the straightforward goal of Breq, but these are the kinds of thoughts you have when reading Ancillary Justice. Its really refreshing to find a book that satisfies both my simple interests (Space Opera with boom!) while still being thought provoking.

And there was plenty of explosions and gun play. Just in case you were worried.

Ancillary Justice was a wonderful read, and I look forward to more in this series.

I found [b:Ancillary Justice 17333324 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1) Ann Leckie https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1372169565s/17333324.jpg 24064628] to be quite interesting. The main character, Breq, embodies a truly novel concept (to me at least). She is a splinter of a hive mind; the single remnant of an AI that once controlled a warship, The Justice of Toren. (That's not a spoiler. It is one of the first things you learn.) The story is told in two timelines: the present, in which Breq is seeking justice for an evil deed, and a flashback timeline in which that evil occurred. Though, Breq is only a shadow of her former self, she is still very competent and very dangerous indeed.And is Breq even a “she”? At the end of the story I still don't know. Gender indifference and gender confusion are an integral part of the story. Most characters are referred to as “she” or “her”, but gender designations switch sometimes. This reminds me somewhat of [a:Ursula K. Le Guin 874602 Ursula K. Le Guin https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg]'s [b:The Left Hand of Darkness 18423 The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) Ursula K. Le Guin https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309282484s/18423.jpg 817527]. However, in that book (IIRC) most characters were referred to with masculine pronouns.The social system is very interesting. It is based on families and “clients” in a hierarchical structure, but with some provision for meritorious advancement. I don't think the writer meant to mimic any particular society, but it brought to mind ancient Rome and medieval Japan and has some resemblance to that of [a:Walter Jon Williams 48960 Walter Jon Williams https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1275489992p2/48960.jpg]' Dread Empire's Fall series . The entire social structure is run by an all-powerful entity made up of clones with a shared intelligence.All in all, Ancillary Justice is a good story and a solid first novel. I have to give [a:Ann Leckie 3365457 Ann Leckie https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-d9f6a4a5badfda0f69e70cc94d962125.png] major props for imagination and world building.