Stolen from Goodreads (and probably the back of the novel)

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren–a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of corpse soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. And only one purpose–to revenge herself on Anaander Mianaai, many-bodied, near-immortal Lord of the Radch.

The buzz for this book has been enormous and as a result Ancillary Justice has been discussed and reviewed to death.*  Which is a good thing because the novel deserves the attention it’s been getting.  Not just because it’s a half decent book but because the reviews and discussions have prompted further talks about gender and class and colonialism.  It certainly got me thinking.

Interestingly, if not for the buzz I might not have finished Ancillary Justice.  I found the opening third to be tough going.  And no it wasn’t because Breq kept referring to everyone as “she” whether male or female.  Rather I found the detached tone of the novel – a deliberate choice from Leckie given that her narrator is and was the AI for a star ship – off putting.  I didn’t care about anything or anyone.

And then there’s an event that happens about a third of the way through and from that point I was hooked.  It also helped that this event leads to a momentum shift in the novel.  Unlike a couple of the reviews I’ve linked to, I also found the frenetic last third to be not only a good deal of fun but also where Leckie’s themes around class, colonialism and gender come together.  Yes, the book ends just as its getting good – but hey that’s why you’re going to pick up the second novel.

In this twitter discussion, my mate (and excellent critic) Jonathan McCalmont found less to enjoy about the novel feeling it was twenty years out of date.  Maybe he was referring to authors like Banks, Greenland and Meaney or LeGuin, Russ and Tiptree who’d already staked claims in the SF sandpit of sentient spaceships, gender games and  colonialism.  But even if he’s right, I have no problems with these issues and tropes being dusted off and given a fresh coat of paint.  If there was a dialogue between those authors back twenty years ago that conversation has well and truly dried up.

Leckie’s novel reignites the debate, get us talking about whether the use of “she” in the book is just an affectation, an annoying authorial tick or commentary about how much gender defines how we interpret the world.  Her attack on colonialism is also a reminder that we all still swallow the benign homogeneity of Star Trek’s Federation without comment.  And Breq’s relationship with Seivarden shows us the class divide that’s emerged, a symptom of annexing other cultures and races.  (And by the way the world building in this book is definitely one of its strengths).

Ancillary Justice will be nominated for a Nebula.  It’s also odds on favorite to get a Hugo nod.  It will probably be up against Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi, but that’s OK because I think it will give these books a run for their Hugo vote.  Because of the voting packet more people will be exposed to the ideas in this book whether they’re new or twenty years old.  And that’s got to be a good thing.

 

* I’m no expert on these things, but if the buzz was started by anyone it was Liz Bourke’s glowing review for tor.com in September.  Her opening paragraph —

It’s not every day a debut novel by an author you’d never heard of before derails your entire afternoon with its brilliance. But when my review copy of Ancillary Justice arrived, that’s exactly what it did. In fact, it arrowed upward to reach a pretty high position on my list of best space opera novels ever.

— resulted me in immediately pre-ordering the novel.  Possibly that also says something about how much I trust Liz’s opinion.

(The John Scalzi blurb on the top of the novel probably didn’t hurt the book either).