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 […]
Muscle and Blood and Skin and Bones
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 […]
Chose my aim. Take one step and then the next. There had never been anything else.
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 […]
Becoming more human
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 […]
This book is Leckie-lite.
If you don’t go in to this expecting to be challenged with brilliance, you’ll probably enjoy it very much. Despite being set in the same story universe as her Imperial Radch trilogy, Provenance is of a much lighter tone, and is much more accessible. I struggled with massive confusion for about the first quarter of Ancillary Justice before I caught on, but not so here. I had fun with it, but it didn’t knock my socks off (and I don’t think it was supposed to). Our main character is […]
Just Made That Way
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013) – Well, I see what all the fuss is about now. I read a lot of space opera. It’s my favorite genre. But, I have to admit that sometimes it gets a little formulaic. There’s a hero, some political situation, big space ships, possibly aliens, and blasters. Ancillary Justice is anything but predictable. In fact, when it started out, I wasn’t sure who the narrator was. Is he or she the ship? The servants assisting the people in power? […]