Have you ever experienced so much anticipation for a book that it you nearly squealed in glee?
This is me with Ann Leckie’s Translation State. If Translation State had just been a sequel to her Imperial Radch Trilogy, it would still have been intriguing enough to check out. But Translation State is not just a follow-up to the Radch books—it’s a book that heavily features the Presgr Translators!
To keep things vague for anyone who hasn’t yet read the Radch books (and you should), the Presgr are an alien race that are insanely alien; no one knows what they look like, and no one can really understand their morality, even after negotiating treaties with them. They are utterly inscrutable, and their only means of communication with other races has been through the Translators—a group of beings that look human, but with their weird internal physiology, violent tendencies and bizarro blue-and-orange morality, are decidedly not.
And why human? Possibly they were the first group that tried to negotiate with the Presgr after the Presgr kept on tearing them to shreds…
The Presgr Translators are also, almost inexplicably, delightfully bonkers. I love a really ‘alien’ kind of alien in my science fiction, I really do. I also have a love of Python-esque humor. These guys scratch both of those itches, and I have to admit, The Presgr Translators are some of my favourite characters to waltz out of a space opera in a chaotic cloud of social faux pas.
Eggs are so inadequate, don’t you think? They ought to be able to become anything but instead you always get a chicken or a duck or whatever they’re programmed to be. You never get anything interesting like ‘regret’ or ‘the middle of the night last week.’ – Translator Dilque, Ancillary Sword.
We follow three main characters in Translation State, whose links are not immediately obvious. Enae Athtur, after the death of hir overbearing Grandmaman, is sent off to search of the whereabouts of a diplomatic official who went missing over two hundred years ago. The leaders of this mad goose chase aren’t expecting hir to succeed, but Enae prides hirself on being diligent. Around the same time, two men from a politically persecuted ethnic group are trying to convince Reet Hluid, a simple maintenance worker on a space station, that he’s actually descended from once a rich and powerful family. While this seems semi-plausible at first blush—Reet was an orphan found on a spaceship after all—something doesn’t quite add up. His genetic markers have never suggested anything of the sort. In fact, no one has been able to pin him down at all. And while Reet presents himself as a rather well adjusted young man, he did have a bit of an issue growing up with biting. One that was notable enough that his family still feels the need to bring it up, even though he’s about thirty years old…
Then there is Qven. Qven is an immature Presgr Translator, and it’s through Qven’s first person viewpoint that we start to get at the society behind these delightfully bonkers Translators. Even from a young age, juvenile Translators can be horrifically violent, and their absolutely off-the-wall thought processes are well and truely on display. Qven was raised from a very young age to take on a very important Translator role, but after going through a very traumatic event (yes, traumatic even for a Translator) Qven is now terrified
While Translation State can absolutely be read as a stand alone, I think it’s a much, much more rewarding read if you have read both Imperial Radch trilogy and another of Leckie’s novels set in the same world, Provenance. Many of the themes of these books are carried over in Translation State: both the big—with personhood and empire— and the more personal—such as identity and gender. And sometimes they intersect in interesting ways—I think this is the first time we see the almost agender Radchaai aggressively impose their social norms on those they find inferior. The Presgr too, unsurprisingly, have issues with others determining who they are for themselves. And this has explosive consequences.
The other rewarding thing about reading Translation State as a sequel to the other books as that there are some huge payoffs for the fans of the Translators. Almost every weird, outlandish, or just plain incomprehensible comment made by the Translators in both Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy will make so much more sense after reading Translation State. It is, again, bonkers. But it just filled me with glee reading about it.
The only mild criticism I have with Translation State is that at the outset of the book, we’re lead to think it’s leading into a proper space opera. But its not quite that—the story ends up more intimate aand contained. It is still excellent, but I am really killing for a more expanded story in this universe.
So here I am, spruiking for the violent little murder-balls. Hopefully, my enthusiasm will prove to be contagious.
For my passport, I haven’t filled out genre yet—so here’s one for Sci-fi
And for cbr15bingo, this is Strange Worlds. And I don’t think I need to explain that.