Ancillary Sword

Didn't like this one as much as the first book in the series. Still a pleasant read, not nearly as experimental.

Not as good as the first one, and felt often like things were happening just for the plot to get along. I didn't understand Justice of Torren's reasoning most of the time.

A very quick and easy read, though, and tackled the white saviour syndrome well.

I loved the first in this series, but this book…. I can’t say I am glad to have read it. Unending chapters about drinking tea and the importance of fine dishes, and just when I am about to give up something major happens. I wish I had just read a summary.

I read the second book after the third book because while reading the third book I never realized it was the third book because it was so flat and boring and nothing happened.

Now after reading the second book it feels more like the third book in progress and happening and I would be even more pissed off if I would have read that in order.

Still this book is just flat and boring and horrible like the other two. The main character is this all good all can do everybody thinks he can solve the universe person that you just start to hate really well really soon.

It feels like some horrible teenage fantasy novel that should have never been published.

Don‘t read one of those books. Ever.

I really like the Radch world and the questions of agency, justice and gender its human-and-machine hybrid society poses. And yet, this book felt too trapped in a small planet's colonial plot? It dragged in parts and I had a hard time keeping the characters apart.

As it's been a while since I read the first one, I would have appreciated a glossary, to help me get back into the world's unique terminology.

This was a fun enough ride, but I also constantly felt like I was just skating on the surface of some deeper meaning that I'm too dense to decipher, and therefore also just skating on the brink of some deeper appreciation and enjoyment of it.

The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie is spectacular. The core ideas and premise in it may not be a breath of fresh air by this point, but the way Leckie constructs those tropes from ground-up and pushes them to its limit will certainly make the books in the series stand out in one's mind, no matter how many iterations of the same tropes one has read before.

But there's also a denseness to Leckie's writing that is not the easiest to parse. It requires the utmost attention as you read it, maybe even demands re-reads to fully understand the intricacies of the world Leckie is building and the nuances of the character interactions here. That is probably why I felt like I was skating on the surface all the time, even more so than I did with the first book.

While the first book, Ancillary Justice, was also dense, it had a lot more action going on so there were moments of re-grouping where we had time to catch up with the information given to us. In this one though, there isn't really that much movement happening. Our ship protagonist, Breq, has now been made Fleet Captain by the Lord of the Radch herself. In such a position, she makes her way towards Athoek station ostensibly to protect that system as a delegate of the Radch. She doesn't tell people that it is also the hometown of her late captain, Lt. Awn, where she intends to find Awn's sister to make amends. Along the way, Breq makes friends and enemies amongst the various races living on Athoek, and serves justice as she understands it.

There is a lot more politics about imperialism here, and the friction not only between colonizer (Radchaai) and the colonized races, but also the friction between colonized races, depending on how closely they have formed alliances with the Radchaai and therefore have moved up the socioeconomic hierarchy. It was all reminiscent (and perhaps deliberately so) of British imperialism and therefore of my own Commonwealth country and history, something that I honestly did not expect from this book. I appreciated the thoughts and discussion the book had on whether Breq's so-called justice was futile and in fact detrimental no matter how well-intentioned.

Overall though, this book was okay. It's a hard one for me to rate. I enjoyed it, but at the same time it didn't blow my mind - and yet, I'm not even sure if I just need to read it closer and harder. I feel like I missed a few points here, and I keep thinking it's entirely my fault for not having paid enough attention while reading, given how popular and beloved this book is. Definitely will read the next one though.

Poke the hornet's nest
see who flies into a rage
no time for feelings.

I have really mixed feelings on this book. I should really enjoy it, since the previous book in the series was one of my favourite reads of last year, introducing one of the most unique and interesting Sci-fi worlds I've ever read, having a main character completely different to any I've seen in the space, and just overall being really well written.

So going into Ancillary Sword, I had really high hopes, and I don't want to say that they were dashed, since that seems a tad extreme, but they certainly weren't met. This book is the definition of middle book syndrome. Almost nothing interesting actually happens throughout the novel, which is a crying shame, because, just like Ancillary Justice, the world is realized brilliantly, with every new detail we get about the culture, the history and the technology elevating the Radch Empire even further than it reached in the first book.

The major issues were, at least in my opinion, almost everything else.

The plot picks up a week after the last books ending, with Breq now being registered as a cousin of Anaander Mianaai, and being raised to the rank of Fleet Captain, and given her own ship to command. She chooses her lieutenants, one of whom is Seivarden from the previous book, the other Ekalu, a previous lieutenant of the ship.

She's sent to Athoek to safeguard it from the other Anaander, but also to guard her old captain's sister, who is stationed onboard the orbital station above Athoek.

The majority of the book takes place on this station, and makes sure that you understand the culture of the peoples that live aboard it through and through. The scope of the story is one of the biggest strengths. Too much epic Sci-fi makes a point to constantly system hop and explore as many planets as possible, even if it's to the detriment of the story. Leckie very clearly feels the same, since the next book in the series, is also set on the same station.

Leckie's prose is just as good as in the prior book, with her weaving every new environment in front of you effortlessly. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's really good.

Well, so far I've been very positive on the book, so it's time to explain where it went down to three stars. As I said, the worldbuilding is absolutely fantastic. It's just a shame that very few of the characters feel as well fleshed out. Physical descriptions are sparse, rarely going more than one or two sentences, the monogender making it difficult to even pin down the basic profile of a character. I say this despite the fact that I really like the monogender as a concept, I just wish Leckie had given more description for the characters.

The only characters I can say I genuinely like are Breq, who has a really strong voice as a PoV, and is just really fucking cool to boot, and Tisarwat, the young Lieutenant who had a personality transplant with a 3000 year old Emperor. Seivarden was a good character in the previous book, but she's missing for the majority of the story, only really having one major moment towards the end of the book.

The other main issue with the book, is that barely anything happens. There are 3 events of note.
Without specific spoilers, they were the shooting, the bomb, and the standoff. And that was it. The rest was quiet conversations and setup for the last book. I understand that writing a second book in a trilogy is a nightmarish balancing act, but oh my god, I was just interminably bored for the majority of the story.

These two issues compounded to make me really confused when I finished the book. I could point to things I really enjoyed, but I also found myself just sort of disinterested in continuing. I fully intend to see the series through, since the Anaander storyline is fascinating to me, and I really like being in Breqs head. If you enjoyed Ancillary Justice, I'd recommend going into this with tempered expectations. This isn't going to leave you with the same fulfilled feeling that Justice did, but you'll probably have a pretty good time with it.

I feel REALLY conflicted about this book. I enjoyed it through and through, but it was slow as hell and there really isn't much payoff to the many story threads.

I'll probably read the third in the series because I love the world that Leckie has created, but this book was a swing and a miss for me.

Random thoughts:

- A main protagonist I liked is still around but... Wasn't really used in the plot much at all?

- This book is all about how imperialism is bad but it also leans on the “white saviour” trope HEAVILY. Braq is just too perfect and solves everyone's problems. Blah.

- What was the point of this book? It really felt like a long setup for a final chapter in the trilogy.

- I honestly like all the tea drinking and politics but it's a bit much at times.

- “Baby lieutenants” are aborable little imperialists.

Eher 3.5 als 4, aber ok. Sehr anstrengend zu lesen, hätte auch etwas “mehr” Story Substanz sein können. Hat typische “Mittelteil” Schwächen. Andererseits kann ich in keinster Weise sagen was mich im letzten Part erwartet.

Imagine you write a novel that wins basically every major sci-fi award in English speaking world. (Not that awards actually matter.) Partly because you write great orwellian novel from the future with original spin of AI being the main character in human skin fighting an all knowing other AI that is simultaneously at war with itself. Partly, I fear, because you inject your woke ideology into it but it's not overhanded and it's enjoyable even for someone like me so activists prop it up while normies don't mind.

Now imagine you throw that original worldbuilding out the window and write a sequel confined into one space station and tea plantation on the planet. Promise of epic space opera? Nowhere to be found. Promise of over the top woke social talking points? Everywhere.

There's more characters in here so the inability to differentiate gender, to imagine what the characters look like is almost impossible at this point. Author uses only feminine pronouns so reader has no idea who is male or female. Additionally, it was established in the first book that AI with IQ probably somewhere above 300 can't tell a difference between men and women... On top of that literally everybody, even characters on ships who are from various parts of the galaxy are all “dark skinned or darker skinned”. Tea plantation is a metaphor for cotton plantations and workers are slaves in all but name.

But even despite all of that I'd be okay with the book if it moved plot forward or if characterization of anybody, ANYBODY was better. But this is a filler, a spin-off. Maybe it should've been the first act of Justice's sequel instead of whole book. It doesn't even much feel like a setup for sequel until the last 20 pages.

There's no characterization of Breq's crew. They are all human but since previous captain liked them to act like ancillaries (ship's AI in human bodies) they act like them. They're robots without a hint of character except for Kalr Five's love of porcelain, lol. And near the end they say they like living like this. Has the author ever talked to a soldier? To another human being for that matter? Is she in love with Star Trek's Borgs?
I guess that's how author masks her biggest weakness because character's from space station and plantation are also just as flat.

I fear the conclusion in Mercy won't conclude anything if it's going to be in any way similar to this book. If I ever even bother to waste more time on this series.

I think it's more of a 3.5 but I'm rounding up.

This audiobook took me so long to listen to, I thought I would forget what happened in the beginning by the time I reached the end. But surprisingly, it didn't feel that way as I kept getting through it bit by bit for more than a month.

As there was a lot of tension and buildup in the first book, I assumed it would continue in this sequel as well. But the author took a very different turn here and while I was surprised, I think it was an interesting change. After such an explosive finale, the author shifts the proceedings to a new station and we get to see the dynamics and tensions of different peoples in this place. Through Breq's unique perspective and the introduction of more characters, the author gives us a thought provoking commentary on racism, xenophobia, systemic discrimination, as well as human trafficking and indentured servitude. We also get to see lots of culture of this new station and how the formalities between people of different hierarchies is such an important part of life and daily work. While there is some action towards the end, it's ultimately a slice of life story with a space opera and imperial politics setting.

In the end, I think this turned out to be a quiet and enjoyable story despite the delays in my reading. The audiobook is narrated very well and I liked getting to know how to pronounce all the names as well as the lovely songs. This is a nice series if you are looking for a character driven political story with important themes, but is told in a slow and quiet way. But it's definitely not the right choice if you want something more action packed in your sci-fi.

I liked Ancillary Justice, so to feel the second novel in the series upping the ante was pretty fun as a reader. I think one of the most interesting plot points of this part of the trilogy is how Breq's identity as an ancillary (i.e., non-human-but-made-from-a-murdered-human AI; this isn't a spoiler alert as that's clear from from the first novel) gives them passing privilege among humans, with the downside passing always also includes: hearing in an even more unfiltered manner how clearly and easily humans distinguish between themselves and other (read: lesser) life forms. Breq also struggles with themes about what privacy and consent mean in a hyper-connected world, and those around her and under her command wrestle with whether individuals have the power for change in vast, slow moving, inequitable systems. There's a quote from a review of the front of the book that refers to the trilogy as a “space opera,” and opera doesn't speak to me personally, usually, but I get what they mean: thematically, the scope of this trilogy really feels like what it means to be a person (human or otherwise) in the world.

The second book in the trilogy is not quite as good as the first one, largely because the plot moves a little too slowly for much of its length. It's effectively a prolonged piece of scene-setting with the main events all squeezed into the last 20% or so... which couldn't be said of the first book. Having said that, the scene-setting is good, and is really the main point of it. This time, the story is set entirely within the Radch, so that mostly what we're seeing is an examination of their culture, with both its strengths and weaknesses - in particular, there's a strong critique of well-intentioned imperialism.

The fact that we don't leave the Empire also means that the biological sex of most of the characters is even less clear than before. Mostly, this doesn't matter, but there's a nice twist towards the end where one of the few characters that I had thought of as clearly being a particular sex turned out to be the other, forcing me to evaluate why I'd felt that way about them. You couldn't do that sort of thing in a story written in regular, gendered, English (or in a video format).

Once the plot finally gets somewhere, the result is also entertaining, with some dramatic denouements and moments of action. Perhaps it only scrapes the full four stars, being a little bit too leisurely in places, but it's certainly both interesting and memorable.

I loved Ancillary Justice SO much and then I desperately needed to take on the rest of the series IMMEDIATELY. I kind of regret rushing through the series rather than savoring it. Nonetheless, I think Sword, while struggling a little with the pacing problems of a middle book in a trilogy, brought a lot of unique strengths to the series. I particularly liked Leckie's take on colonialism. I felt like she captured the ways in which SciFi can be a lens to reflect back on the issues of today, without weakening her own imaginative and unique setting. This is definitely a smaller book than Ancillary Justice – more focused on Breq and her crew, their interpersonal relationships, contrasted with the interpersonal relationships of those on the station and downwell and how those ultimately result in systemic flaws. I liked to have this lull in the series to really bathe in Leckie's universe and its social rules.

It's been quite a while since I read Ancillary Justice. I'm not sure why I waited so long as I loved Justice.

I loved this one too. One of the fascinating ideas is that Breq, when she was Justice of Toren was a colonizer. Seeing how she deals with that when she meets people who have been colonised by the Radchaai gives much food for thought.

This is book 2 in the trilogy and the first one, Ancillary Justice, was excellent. This one, though... SMH. This had some early potential, but then, for the vast majority of the book, became a bit dull. Basically, Breq was investigating some injustices and irregularities in a station around a tea-growing planet. There was nothing exciting about it. A small bit of action occurs near the end. Not enough. I'm seriously wondering if the trilogy is worth finishing at this point.

Which brings up a peeve of mine. Why do blurbs on subsequent books in a series always refer to the first book? That's not helpful. I've already read the first book, how are those blurbs supposed to influence or inform my thinking on reading the next one!? It's frikkin annoying. Cut it out.

So Ancillary Justice told a simple story, to me, in an enjoyably convoluted way. Ancillary Sword tells a more complex and nuanced story in a more linear, straightforward way. And that shift suits the story being told as this series goes into full on Space Opera mode. Good stuff.

more meh than the first one. The only pov character is an over-powered robot with no plan and no character. There is a civil war going on, but there's no conflicts, or hint of a path toward resolution. But it's cool world building, so it's got that going for it.

I enjoyed this but not as much as the first in the series - perhaps because the plot and setting were far more confined. The ending, though reasonably complete, felt very much a set up for book 3. I look forward to reading that book, hoping that it may return to some of the scale of book 1.

This entry doesn't introduce as many groundbreaking concepts as the first book (inevitably, since they've already been introduced), but it's a worthy successor and introduces some new themes around class that fit well. Excited to read the finale.

Deel twee van deze “space opera”, prima voortzetting van deel 1 (zie aldaar).

[b:Ancillary Justice 17333324 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1) Ann Leckie https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397215917s/17333324.jpg 24064628] is an impossible act to follow. Leckie is a talented writer, deeply passionate about issues of justice and fairness, and here she explores racism and privilege. Well done, and her continuing development of gender & personality topics are thoughtful, but it's hard not to be disappointed after Justice.

I continue to be enthralled with this series. It's like The Left Hand of Darkness meets The Culture. The plot is still a bit ordinary but I really like the world and characters. I actually think that operating on a smaller, more intimate scale made this book slightly stronger than Ancillary Justice. Still not quite hitting five stars, but quite good.

Re-read 6/13/19
Still phenomenal. This has the make-up of a slower set-up book but there's so many sub-plots going on in the background that I couldn't help but truly admire the author's ability to interweave the complexities of each one to work into the narrative. The reader isn't able to see the complete picture but discovers small revelations here and there that eventually lead to an unveiling of one character's motives and see how Breq is able to predict to a certain extent their intent or future actions.

Read 8/3/15
This series is absolutely fantastic! Breq is an amazing MC and I love reading about how calculating and caring she is. The one big difference I noticed going into this installment is how the writing was more fluid and I was able to picture the settings more easily. I think if I went back to reread the first one I would be able to understand the terms better. But overall, I think the writing in this one was much better in terms of settings. I love the new characters that were introduced (and weren't the ones that were completely insane), like Mercy of Kalr's crew, Tisarwat, Basnaaid, etc. I could tell that they are going to be more prominent as the series continues as is the Athoek station itself.

*Spoilers ahead*I loved Tisarwat and Breq's teasing tone with her. I hope that Tisarwat can make peace with herself and become more integral to the story. And that ending with Basnaaid was phenomenal. It was exactly what I wanted to happen because I could tell how Athoek and Mercy of Kalr were going to be the current resting place for Breq and crew. So it was fundamental that Breq explains her history.