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Title: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)
Author: Ann Leckie
Published: New York: Orbit, 2013
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 179,310
Text Number: 527
Read Because: discussed by Books and Pieces, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Once an AI with numerous subsets and physical bodies, Breq is now left with one physical body and desperate, unformed plan. Ancillary Justice has an almost unforgivably slow start, due to an epic space opera scale, an intentionally oblique narrative, and some confusing names. But after the initial adjustment period, the book excels. It's satisfying to watch the wide-ranging plots coalesce, and Leckie's philosophical battles have subtle human faces. The central concept of multi-facet and -body intelligence is phenomenal, not just creative but well-realized; exploring Breq's pluralized point of view is broadening, and has effective reverberations throughout the plot. The non-gendered society I find less successful*, but it remains a welcome addition. I find it easy to overlook Ancillary Justice's flaws, not because I don't see them but because the book is so captivating that I just don't care. I look forward to reading the sequels.
* I am of many minds regarding the treatment of gender. The non-gendered "she" is an innate misnomer and erases non-gendered identities—which are not a speculative thought-experiment: non-gendered people exist, and so do non-gendered pronouns. That said, "she" as universal default is intentionally confrontational, demanding that the reader never develop assumptions about either gender or culture. I enjoy also the reversal of being confused by and dismissing gendered societies—but to remove all concepts of gender is also limiting. There are moment I love, Breq's view of concourse chief among them:
On an individual level, in Breq's grammatical troubles and the intentional crossover into the reader's experience, the execution is often successful. At a worldbuilding/conceptual level, the issue of gender can be clumsy. But what a joy to be given the opportunity to debate this issue at all.
Author: Ann Leckie
Published: New York: Orbit, 2013
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 179,310
Text Number: 527
Read Because: discussed by Books and Pieces, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Once an AI with numerous subsets and physical bodies, Breq is now left with one physical body and desperate, unformed plan. Ancillary Justice has an almost unforgivably slow start, due to an epic space opera scale, an intentionally oblique narrative, and some confusing names. But after the initial adjustment period, the book excels. It's satisfying to watch the wide-ranging plots coalesce, and Leckie's philosophical battles have subtle human faces. The central concept of multi-facet and -body intelligence is phenomenal, not just creative but well-realized; exploring Breq's pluralized point of view is broadening, and has effective reverberations throughout the plot. The non-gendered society I find less successful*, but it remains a welcome addition. I find it easy to overlook Ancillary Justice's flaws, not because I don't see them but because the book is so captivating that I just don't care. I look forward to reading the sequels.
* I am of many minds regarding the treatment of gender. The non-gendered "she" is an innate misnomer and erases non-gendered identities—which are not a speculative thought-experiment: non-gendered people exist, and so do non-gendered pronouns. That said, "she" as universal default is intentionally confrontational, demanding that the reader never develop assumptions about either gender or culture. I enjoy also the reversal of being confused by and dismissing gendered societies—but to remove all concepts of gender is also limiting. There are moment I love, Breq's view of concourse chief among them:
I saw them all, suddenly, for just a moment, through non-Radchaai eyes, an eddying crowd of unnervingly ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that would mark gender for non-Radchaii—never, to my annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place. Short hair or long, worn unbound (trailing down a back, or in a thick, curled nimbus) or bound (braided, pinned, tied). Thick-bodied or thin-, faces delicate-featured or coarse-, with cosmetics or none. A profusion of colors that would have been gender-marked in other places. All of this matched randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip or not, bodies that one moment moved in ways various non-Radchaai would call feminine, the next moment masculine. Twenty years of habit overtook me, and for an instant I despaired of choosing the right pronouns, the right terms of address. But I didn't need to do that here. I could drop that worry, a small but annoying weight I had carried all this time. I was home.
On an individual level, in Breq's grammatical troubles and the intentional crossover into the reader's experience, the execution is often successful. At a worldbuilding/conceptual level, the issue of gender can be clumsy. But what a joy to be given the opportunity to debate this issue at all.
