Provenance

Ann Leckie is definitely one of my favorite modern authors. She writes with such a great sense of humor and has such incredible world-building skills. While I didn't like Provenance quite as much as the Ancillary series (it doesn't make quite the same social commentary), I did find it a very enjoyable adventure. I love the idea of “vestiges” and a culture that is built around collecting artifacts whose value changes with each moment. Maybe it's because I own a ton of relatively worthless things that i value so highly...

While this book doesn't deal with gender issues as directly as the Imperial Radch books do, Leckie does make a point of including gender neutral pronouns for certain characters, and being non-binary is a subject treated as ordinarily as being cis-gender. She even has characters who determine gender with their assumption of adulthood, a pretty great concept. On her book tour, Leckie spoke at length about stealing from archaeology, and I'd really be interested to read her annotations on which cultures she pulled from to write this and her other books.

Set in the same world as the Radch trilogy, but not in the Radch, this book is also full of Easter eggs for readers of the previous trilogy while not necessitating reading in order. When Radch characters show up, I had a whole different view of them than I did in the first series, which is a pretty cool trick to pull off.

Provenance is engaging, twisty, emotional, and altogether a great read. Highly recommended to people who like their space opera with biomechanical spiders and a diverse, non-binary cast.