Cannonball Read 11

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Why Is It Always So Hard to Review the Great Ones?

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

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Bingo Square: Award Winner I’ve been meaning to read this novel for quite a while now, but BR 11 Bingo was the final push to get me to start it.  I like sci-fi, but some sci-fi can become a bit dry and too technical for me to enjoy, and I feared this might be one of them.  As it turns out, I should not have been concerned about that at all. I also started reading Becky Chambers’ novels recently, so it was interesting to read two novels where a ship’s AI played such a large role, and showed two very […]

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7/31/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:14 |

I don’t think Ann Leckie has it in her to write a book that isn’t weird as hell.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

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I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this book. I’d read the summary when it was first announced, but that did nothing for me except make me go, ‘huh?’ But, when an author writes four good books in a row (and some of those I would actually consider “great”), you lend them a little trust and just go with whatever they publish, until it bites you. Leckie’s books have yet to bite me, no matter how weird or outside the box she gets while writing them. This is a fantasy, mostly set in an alternate what I think […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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4/11/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:40 |

I felt like I could see the wizard behind the curtain, pulling the strings

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

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 On a visit to London last year, I stopped by Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road a few times, and on one of those visits, I picked up three space opera books: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley, and Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. The cashier’s face lit up when he saw my choices, saying that he’d read and loved all of them, especially Ancillary Justice. I’m not sure why it’s the last of the three that I’m getting to, but I’m sorry to say that it’s my least […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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3/24/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:18 |

Bad head-space, not a bad space-book

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

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I am way late to this party, and now that I’ve arrived, I’m not sure it was worth the trip. I know Cannonballers love this book, and it was given to me by my dad, former Cannonballer sabian30, after he read it and liked it. But I didn’t love it like I wanted to. The concept is interesting: ancillaries are sprawling, brilliant, multi-bodied beings that serve the Lord of the Radch. Our main character is a ship as well as an army of genetically enhanced, easily replaceable bodyguards and soldiers, all with one hivemind attuned to her captain and crew. […]

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11/15/2018 's CBR10 Review No:23 |

Young blood

Provenance by Ann Leckie

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For a book that features deep space travel and multiple distinct alien races, Ann Leckie’s Provenance is a surprisingly human and even cozy story. A companion work to her stunning Imperial Radch trilogy (more informally referred to as the Ancillary trilogy sometimes), Provenance focuses on smaller stakes — though of course there are intergalactic ramifications. It follows Ingray Aughskold, the adopted daughter of a planetary noble, as she takes a risk to impress her mother and stumbles into a tangle of converging political plots and alien interests. And for all the airlocks, mechs, and yawning voids of interstellar nothingness, there’s […]

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7/21/2018 's CBR10 Review No:1 |

Muscle and Blood and Skin and Bones

Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

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Assyria soon discovered a painful truth: empires are like Ponzi schemes: financial frauds in which previous investors are paid returns out of new investors’ deposits. The costs of holding imperial territory can only be underwritten by loot and tribute extracted by constant new conquests; empires must continue to expand if they are not to collapse.” – Paul Kriwaczek, Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth Of Civilization  At the end of Ancillary Justice, Anaander Mianaai was openly at war with herself. One faction of the Lord of the Radch wanted to stop expanding and stop making ancillaries. The other faction wanted to […]

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7/6/2018 's CBR10 Review No:29 |

Chose my aim. Take one step and then the next. There had never been anything else.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

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I will often hear about an award winning science fiction book and think “I should read that, but I won’t because it sounds serious and boring.” That is what I thought when I heard about Ancillary Justice. Yes, I want to slap me too. Two things happened that moved the Imperial Radch series off my “ought to, but won’t” list. One, Leckie loves Murderbot and two, all three audio books were available on Scribd during my free trial period. I was correct that Ancillary Justice does not start off as a wild ride. It moves at a steady pace flashing back […]

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6/14/2018 's CBR10 Review No:25 |

Becoming more human

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

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3.5 stars. I’m still not totally sure what I think about the second book in the Imperial Radch series. I think I’ve been putting off my review for it because I’m uncertain about it. On one hand, it was immensely readable. On the other hand, not much seemed to happen. The first book was pretty plot driven with Breq out for revenge and lots of flashbacks. Ancillary Sword is fully based in the present and takes things slowly. SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t read book 1, you’ll probably want to stop reading here. Breq is in command of a ship […]

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2/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:16 |


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