Ancillary Mercy

This whole trilogy has been a bit weird for me. I had heard so many good things about it from some of my favorite authors, so I couldn't resist buying all the audiobooks. And I can't say that I didn't enjoy them, but they also aren't my favorites. It's just that I found them compelling enough to continue.

I didn't remember much of what happened towards the end of Ancillary Sword, and I never checkout the blurb for this finale, so didn't at all realize that the proceedings would still remain in Athoek station this time as well. While a significant part of the book was about being ready in case of any attack on the station or on Breq, I felt that this book was mainly about the characters and their relationships. We get to see Seivarden in her most vulnerable moments, while also getting to maybe understand her snobby privileged behavior. Tisarwat is still struggling to separate her own thoughts with that of Anaander Mianaai but is making progress and is generally a great asset in troubling situations despite being pretty high strung. We have significant appearances from all the previous side characters and it's fun watching them again. And Breq is just trying to take one step at a time.

It's mostly still a slice of life kinda story but with the characters' lives in some kind of danger. But there are no elaborate battles or shrewd strategizing here - it's just a group of people (and non humans) trying hard to do the right thing and save as many innocents as possible. There's also quite an understated theme about what what it means to be human, the feelings of ships and AIs and if they all should respect each other's agency and coexist peacefully. I was quite surprised to see how the author used these themes to kinda resolve the story towards the end because I didn't see it coming. But I'm also not used to open ended trilogies, so this felt a bit unsatisfactory. However, on thinking a bit more, I think it's the perfect climax for this trilogy but I wouldn't mind knowing what happens to these characters in the future.