One of my favorite books of 2014 was Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. It’s a sci-fi novel that won pretty much every prize awarded for that genre and features one of the coolest protagonists I’ve ever encountered in literature: Breq, an “ancillary” or corpse soldier who has been untethered from the collective consciousness of her ship but retains amazing physical and cognitive powers. As one character states in book 2, “[Breq] is pretty fucking badass.” In book 1, Breq was on a mission to reach the […]
My only foray into science-fiction this year
Please find my last review of the year here.
Come for the spaceship protagonist, stay for the emooootions.
Breq is smart. Breq is capable and knowledgable. Breq is thoughtful, empathetic. Breq yearns for social justice. Breq mourns for lost love. Breq loves to sing, but has a bit of a temper. Breq used to be a spaceship. Well, if we’re going to get technical, Breq was the artificial intelligence who inhabited the spaceship Justice of Toren, and also thousands of ancillary human bodies (whose previous inhabitants had, um, vacated the premises). Now she only inhabits one, and almost everyone she has ever known […]
Do Androids Dream of … Revenge?
With this 2013 novel, Ann Leckie has won the Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke and, as of last week, Hugo awards, and has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick award. Ancillary Justice has a complex, fascinating plot and in its protagonist a kickass corpse soldier. I picked up the book because the author is a woman (serves my quest to read 50 books by 50 women this year) and it has won so many prestigious awards. I’m often wary of Sci Fi — it’s not […]
All in one, one in all. New convenient packaging!
First of all, if you like science fiction at all, this is THE BOOK you should be reading right now. Just stop what you’re doing and go buy it, or reserve it at the library. It’s important you get in on this now before everybody loves it and then the inevitable contrarians pop up to tell everyone how much they dislike it and how everyone who likes it is probably dumb and/or reading it wrong and really it means THIS and HOW DARE YOU. And if […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6