Ancillary Sword

Awwww, man. Come on, man.

So I really quite liked Part 1 of this Ancillary Trilogy business, though I didn't love it, and so I was only very mildly curious about the sequels. I decided to give this a shot, given its Nebula nom.

Buttttt... well, meh.

Shortly: Breq, former AI of a former big spaceship, now blown-up and reduced to being a single-bodied yet super-cool rogue commando person, is now a captain of her very own spaceship, in charge of her very own crew, and on her very own mission. That mission was... unclear to me for much of the book, but it mostly involves going to this one space station/solar system and... hanging around? Protecting the system? Hrm. Well, Ancillary Space is all in uproar from the blood-splattered fall-out of book 1, and so the “gates” (convenient wormholes, science fiction, hooray!) are kinda broken/kinda dangerous, and so Breq is kinda stranded, protecting this random system - should anyone decide to come through the gate and blow them all up.

Honestly, I spent the first 70% of this book waiting for it to start. When I realized that the “hanging around on this random system, talking to people” thing was the plot, I was like, “Oh. Okay?” Apparently I have missed the point? Of this book? Apparently the point is that it's, like, a social justice domestic drama thing? Because basically Breq finger-wags at the bigoted provincials of the space station (all snobby types; there is even some human trafficking! for shame), and there's some stuff about an intriguing diplomat from the weird aliens-we-never-meet, the Presger (love that name, btw), but mostly it's about Breq calling out people's abusive relationships and saying, “That is NOT okay!” Okay?

I dunno! Am I missing something here?! Seriously, I felt so confused.

All the cool/lovable stuff from book 1 is still present, specifically the
- sneaky way the space hegemony is described as a “dark-skinned”, multiple god-worshipping, tea-drinking, snobby types (hello, desi space raj!)
- considerable and nice social descriptions of a Hinduism-type socio-religious order (seriously, really takes me back - isn't India great? - vah vah kya baat hai)
- the cool/funky/weird AI stuff: the added wrinkle in this book being that now we meet humans who choose to act like cadavers-reanimated-by-a-spaceship-AI (rather than being actual cadavers, re-animated against their will). Because that makes sense? it didn't, but I loved it anyway for its sheer weirdness
- Breq as a protagonist: cool, athletic, lady robot person. Very inspiring for the gym!
So, in a way, this book was like meeting old, familiar friends. Nice.

Yet, I still found it so - bewildering! Like, why was there so much gossipy pants drama?! Aren't we supposed to be worried about the Lord of the Radch coming to blow us all up!? Aren't these people supposed to be military types?! Seriously, there was so much teenage-style romance stuff being practiced by what I had understood to be 30something military people. It even turned a little after-school special-esque: “How can I tell if I'm in an abusive relationship?”

Three stars for confusing me. Now I really don't know what to do with the third book: probably not read it?!