Ancillary Sword

I really wanted to love Ancillary Sword, but sadly it just didn't click for me. It wasn't for lack of effort. In a way it was frustrating because Leckie's prose can be quite amazing at times.

The first book, Ancillary Justice, was universally beloved and won just about every scifi book award that there was to win. I understood what people saw in it, but there was so much in the book that frustrated me. Leckie showed her skills as a tremendous world builder (as everyone has noted), but sadly the characters were a bit lacking.

Leckie set out to fix that in the second book by having it mostly a long character study of Justice of Toren/Breq, the corpse AI that lost her ship that served as her central hub sentenced to a life in a human body. Her tale of vengeance led to a climatic face off in the first book and this one picked up directly after and at times it was hard to grasp where the plot was heading.

It wasn't due to depth or complication but instead because of the pacing and what the main focus of the book turned out to be. Leckie has proven to be a slow starter, in fact, I almost put down Ancillary Justice until I got to about the 40% mark when it picked up, with Ancillary Sword it probably didn't pick up until somewhere near the realm of 70%.

Her prose can be great, like I said, but at other times frustrating. Why is everyone gesturing? The word “gesture” appears in some form what feels like every page on both books and while I can understand that Breq is an AI who views things a bit differently, she seems to have a superior intellect and I'm sure can break down these gestures into more depth than just “she gestured agreement” and so forth.

Most of the book felt like something that most authors would have summed up briefly within a a few pages, a few chapters at most. Instead most of our time is spent with Breq seeing how the common people live. It was a valuable thing for the character to experience in her quest, undoubtedly, but the presentation and the events felt rather uninspired. There was also the fact that the reader was given no real insight as to what Breq was after throughout most of the journey.

There was similar insight missing from the first book early on, which made it such a slog to endure. I've seen a lot of people saying “well, I didn't understand it, but maybe I'm just smart enough.” Readers have to be unafraid to take authors to task on things like this. Ancillary Justice wasn't confusing because it flew over the readers' heads, but because there wasn't enough detail or insight into the characters to get the reader invested. This book was similar to that.

So if AJ was missing character development and had a fascinating plot, AS was missing the plot and saw a lot of character development. Hopefully Ancillary Mercy pieces it all together because I truly want to love these books and Leckie's writing, but there are just a few little things that make these books more of a chore than they should be.

Deel twee van de Imperial Radch-trilogie, en even in één adem uitgelezen als het eerste deel.

De wereld wordt hier en daar een beetje uitgediept, en de personages worden zéker meerdimensioneler, maar het blijft nog allemaal zeer op de vlakte qua, euh, Weltanschauung: de armen worden uitgebuit, slechte klassenmaatschappij is slecht, yada yada.

Goede punten voor het detectiveverhaal, slechte punten dat het allemaal zo eenvoudig en snel opgelost raakt. Goede punten voor het hoofdpersonage, dat worstelt met haar eigen niet-mens-zijn, slechte punten voor het hoofdpersonage, dat té schrikwekkend goed is in alles wat ze doet.

Goede punten voor de slechterik, die letterlijk zowel de goede als de slechte en omgekeerd is, en dat zowel voor als tegen haar zijn, verliezen is. Goede punten voor de nevenpersonages, ook de vers geïntroduceerde naar het einde van het boek.

En goede punten voor de aanzet tot het vervolg, en hopen dat het een degelijk einde heeft. Uitkijken naar Ancillary Mercy, voorzien voor 16 oktober 2015.

I think it's more of a 3.5 but I'm rounding up.

This audiobook took me so long to listen to, I thought I would forget what happened in the beginning by the time I reached the end. But surprisingly, it didn't feel that way as I kept getting through it bit by bit for more than a month.

As there was a lot of tension and buildup in the first book, I assumed it would continue in this sequel as well. But the author took a very different turn here and while I was surprised, I think it was an interesting change. After such an explosive finale, the author shifts the proceedings to a new station and we get to see the dynamics and tensions of different peoples in this place. Through Breq's unique perspective and the introduction of more characters, the author gives us a thought provoking commentary on racism, xenophobia, systemic discrimination, as well as human trafficking and indentured servitude. We also get to see lots of culture of this new station and how the formalities between people of different hierarchies is such an important part of life and daily work. While there is some action towards the end, it's ultimately a slice of life story with a space opera and imperial politics setting.

In the end, I think this turned out to be a quiet and enjoyable story despite the delays in my reading. The audiobook is narrated very well and I liked getting to know how to pronounce all the names as well as the lovely songs. This is a nice series if you are looking for a character driven political story with important themes, but is told in a slow and quiet way. But it's definitely not the right choice if you want something more action packed in your sci-fi.

Pros: fascinating characters, interesting narrative approach, develops new world-building aspects

Cons: character driven

A week after the events of Ancillary Justice, Breq, now fleet captain and assigned to Mercy of Kalr, departs on Anaander Mianaai's orders to Athoek to make sure the system stays safe. In addition to her experienced lieutenants, Seivarden and Ekalu (of the Kalr), she has a new 17 year old one, Tisarwat, to train. Once they arrive at the station, they find a suspicious captain, disturbed by the lack of communication after the attack on Omaugh Palace and the destruction of several gates, racial tensions, and minor issues covering larger problems that need to be addressed.

As with the first book, the real aspect of interest is in how Breq sees the world. You don't get flash backs to when she was Justice of Toren, though that's often in her thoughts, instead you get her trying to keep up with frequent run downs of the sort of information she would have have had instantaneously as a ship, sent to her by her ship, Mercy of Kalr. It's an interesting way of seeing things, and allows Breq to pretend she's still one part of a larger whole while also being a narrative means of showing the reader what's happening in places outside Breq's physical sphere. There is a plot, but in many ways this feels like a character driven novel because Breq's presence is so overpowering. If you don't like her unique way of seeing the world, you won't enjoy this book.

Breq comes across as a tough as nails captain. Sometimes she's too tough, pushing her crew beyond what she should, something I suspected would eventually cause her problems, but her extensive experience means she's able to pull back at just the right moment. Even knowing what Breq was trying to do, I thought she was too hard on Tisarwat at times. Not only had the lieutenant been through a traumatic experience with little recovery time, she's given little to no positive reinforcement when she does things right. So while Tisarwat was an interesting character, seeing her through Breq's eyes made her less sympathetic than she probably deserved to be. It was fun seeing her grow up and mature.

I was a little surprised at the number of secrets she kept from her crew, her true identity as Justice of Toren and what happened with Tisarwat being the main ones, but it does make sense that the crew might balk at such things, so keeping them secret probably made sense.

There's more information about how the military works and there's a unique supporting cast. I enjoyed learning more about the military and political politics, both between the ships but also how it applies to a station and planet once they get to Athoek. I'm hoping we learn more about the Presger in the next book. What little was revealed here merely whet the appetite.