2016 Locus SF: ANCILLARY MERCY bu Ann Leckie

I don't remember ever having such a problem with the structure of a trilogy...especially one that I ended up mostly enjoying. There's a moment about midway through Ancillary Sword ***mild spoilers to follow*** where Breq, the narrator, more-or-less proclaims that she's going to assassinate the Empress of the Galaxy (well, the Radch Empire that dominates human settlement of the galaxy). This was an exciting moment that seemed to promise that a somewhat contained story was going to escalate to a great adventure story. The rest of the book involves a trip to a throneworld that seems to cement that idea...and then the second book turned into a comedy of manners on and around out-of-the-way Athoek Station. I assumed that this was a diversion, a sort of mid-trilogy holding pattern while we wait for the big galaxy-shattering events of book 3...

Well, we're not done with Athoek Station by any stretch of the imagination, or the conflict-via-manners storytelling that came with it. In fact, this volume is so strongly tied to the previous one that they would have fit nicely into one volume. That also makes it hard to describe the plot without spoiling the previous book. Breq continues to navigate the Radch Empire's precarious politics, which are confused by the presence of Artificial Intelligence ships and also distributed/networked human intelligence. There is a bit more detail on the aliens around the Radchai, though they remain mostly mysterious. And, there is an action sequence to give the series something of a climax, though the solution once again depends more on Breq's clever diplomacy. And, if the action is slightly increased, the humor is much moreso. It's not too much of a stretch to say that the series, which started as space opera adventure, ends as a comedy.

Maybe it's not fair to speculate, but I get the impression that after her first novel, Leckie settled into a comfort zone telling this kind of softer, funnier character-based drama. It's worth it, however, because comfort and confidence also mean stronger writing. I don't think there's any question that this is the best written book in the series. The characters have really gelled, the humor works (something of a rare thing in serious science fiction), and the world only gets richer and more compelling even as we stay in such a narrow slice of it.

Though it's the best written of the trilogy, I'm not going to say it's the best. Ancillary Sword still benefits from introducing the ideas, the world, and the characters, and Mercy is hurt a bit by some of the false expectations set up by the first book - if we'd had this tone from the first, this would've been a more enjoyable read. Now that Leckie has found her voice, and it's a strong one, I'm interested to see what she'll do next (and she has the sweet bonus of winning all of the awards in the process of finding her voice).

Grade: B

2015 Locus SF and 2014 BSFA Winner: ANCILLARY SWORD by Ann Leckie

If Ancillary Justice plays like a blockbuster science fiction movie that also happens to be very smart and relevant, Ancillary Sword plays like an episode of the Imperial Radch tv show. Said tv show is also pretty smart and relevant, and it does a solid job of extending the themes of Justice, but it doesn't expand on those themes, and it lacks some of the scope of the previous work. I still enjoyed this, but it wasn't Empire Strikes Back to the first book's Star Wars, it was more random "Next Generation" episode to Wrath of Khan.

I don't think I can discuss this plot without mildly spoiling Ancillary Justice, so reader beware.

This book picks up right where the last book left off. Breq has uncovered a deep crisis within the Imperial Radch that threatens to tear the Empire apart, and at the very least could return it to the most vicious form of its colonialism which recent reforms had attempted to moderate. She is able to take command of a ship and proceed to further investigate said crisis. This takes her to Athoek Station, which seems like the jumping off point for a big quest that will delve into the big mysteries of split identities and possible alien infiltration raised by the previous novel...but instead, Sword settles in while Breq meets the locals, tries to do some reforming of corrupt colonial policies and gets involved in some old-fashioned detective work. In other words, it reads a lot like the flashback scenes of the previous work, but it lacks the interspersed bits that contained some more action, nor does it have the big revelations and big galactic-stakes climax of that book.

I'm certainly not saying this is bad, it's just not what I expected. The conflicts and mysteries of Athoek Station are interesting, and Leckie does a good job developing the place and its characters. But the first book introduced three or four really strong concepts that really hooked me in, and this book doesn't add much new to the mix or really advance the overall plot significantly. Breq also began to wear on me a bit - it's interesting that she has a lot of empathy while working on behalf of a largely unempathetic empire, and so she is always fighting for the justice that is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of the Radch. In practice, however, this involves a lot of scenes where she lectures people on why their policies are wrong (I came to refer to this, probably unfairly, as Breqsplaining). I was also bummed that the most interesting character from the last book, Seivarden, is mostly sidelined, as is a promising new character with an interesting hook named Tisarwat, who doesn't get enough to do after the early chapters either. And I'm still not entirely taken by the prose, though again, there is a good excuse for its occasional stiffness.

So, a slight disappointment, but it does set the stage for an exciting third entry, which I will be reading, thanks again to Locus SF voters.

Grade: B-

2014 Hugo and Clarke, 2013 Nebula and BSFA Winner: ANCILLARY JUSTICE by Ann Leckie

A side benefit of my extended hiatus is that I've managed to mostly avoid the Hugos' "sad puppy" stupidity, in which a group of Hugo voters stuffed the nomination ballot boxes with a slate of books that were supposed to celebrate sci-fi adventure over politically-correct messaging.  Look, if you have to game the voting process to get your nominees through, you're an undemocratic movement. Also, bigotry doesn't really make for good democracy either, and the idea that this was a move to eschew contemporary politics is either ignorant or dishonest (as, obviously, an anti-"message" movement sends its own kind of message). If I'd actually had time to read all the nominees, I would have quit doing so when these guys steamrolled through their slate. So, I guess I'm lucky I didn't have time.

One of the ironies of the movement that I think is worth mentioning is that the last couple of years have been exceptionally good for books that resemble an older style of Hugo winner. As I mentioned in my round up of the '00s, traditional forms of science fiction, like space opera, have been in a very rough spot since around the turn of the century, leading to many unconventional Hugo winners, including several fantasy books. If you squint hard and ignore 90% of what people in the movement say (and 100% for the rabid ones), you can almost see a half-decent point that the vast majority of the books from the previous few years didn't fit traditional definitions of mainstream science fiction (hell, I sort of obliquely complained about this is my only posts of 2014).

The problem is, here we have a winner that is absolutely what the Hugos have been missing for the previous decade or so. Ancillary Justice would be right at home in the 1980s, and it draws heavily upon the types of sf (like the works of Ursula K. LeGuin) that did well in 60s and 70s. The fact that a book that represents the best of classic sf won in 2014 really demonstrates the hollowness and sexism of the whole sad puppy "we just miss classic sf" movement.

Breq is an ancillary - a human body that is controlled by the AI of a massive starship of the Radch Empire. Most ships have many ancillaries, which are used as enforcers of colonial rule as the Radchai take over new planets, and these ancillaries share the consciousness of the ship AI. But Breq has lost her ship - she is a lone sliver of that AI consciousness now trapped in human form. She's also on a quest, the nature of which is unveiled over the course of the novel. It has brought her to an icy planet, where she meets one of her former captains, now strung out on drugs, named Seivarden. Much of the novel follows her attempts to fulfill her goals while dealing with her washed-up former commander. Meanwhile, alternating chapters flashback to the Radch conquest of a planet called Shis'urna and reveal Breq's backstory.

It's fairly straightforward, accessible space opera, recalling in world and tone Iain Banks' Culture series and the aforementioned LeGuin's Ekumen books. It doesn't necessarily equal the best works of either of those series, but it's a first novel, and a strong one. And, as a fan of space opera as the quintessential SF sub-genre, I'm happy to see this book gets lots of attention.

It's not perfect. There are plenty of ideas floating around, and not all of them get proper development and attention. The one that seems to interest people the most is the fact that the Radch don't distinguish by gender, meaning that you don't actually know the gender of most of the book's characters (everyone is referred to as a "she"). This is a fun little wrinkle to the world, and Leckie doesn't belabor the point. I think this is mostly for the best, but I did expect a bit more from it. Leckie is more interested in the theme of identity, and what it means to have these distributed consciousnesses. This makes for some crucial plot points, but you rarely get a sense of Breq's personal struggles with identity. Which leads me to my biggest problem with the novel: the prose. Ancillary Justice is written with first person narration, and it is very dry. This does make a certain amount of sense, as the the narrator is an AI fragment, but I think there could have been a more clever and poetic way of conveying this, and I suspect it is as much the result of this being a first novel as it is intentional. I don't want to suggest the prose is bad; it's probably above average for its genre, and it's certainly readable, but I hope for a bit more from Hugo winners (and have gotten it more recently with the likes of Walton and Chabon).

Overall, it's a nice return for space opera to the Hugo novel winners, and I look forward to reading Ancillary Sword (on my to read list thanks to the Locus voters).

Grade: B+