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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
Leckie came out of nowhere as a combination of some of the best elements of Iain Banks and Ursula K LeGuin. This is hardcore military sci fi in a context that investigates gender, race, and identity...as in, what makes 'you' out of the combination of asynchronous processes in your mind and changes over time.
Characters have emotions, complex pasts and relationships, and live on a universe of politics, violence, slavery, and heroes in the best space opera tradition.
On my second reading, I prefer the first and third books to this one. The politics and time spent on planet are less exciting than the spaceship and space station parts, and the analogies are rather hitting the reader over the head instead of nuanced.
Characters have emotions, complex pasts and relationships, and live on a universe of politics, violence, slavery, and heroes in the best space opera tradition.
On my second reading, I prefer the first and third books to this one. The politics and time spent on planet are less exciting than the spaceship and space station parts, and the analogies are rather hitting the reader over the head instead of nuanced.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
this book gets on with the plot a bit faster than book one and straight off the bat it is funnier, which i always appreciate. i also really love the almost overwhelming experience of Breq keeping track of events happening in 2 to 3 places at once. excellently done. the mystery is gripping, and the book continues to ponder the question of justice. thoroughly enjoyed. the end made me feel emotions
Just plain brilliant. Not as much "action" as the first in the series, but I personally loved the intricate political strategy and all that. This was actually mind-bogglingly good. And I can't get the third until someone in my library system returns the digital copy! Argh!
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
One of the best book I've read in a long time. A step up from the first of the series, full of mystery and tension and gripping from start to finish. Super unique sci-fi entirely built from some of the most in-depth, evolving character work and momentous world-building I've ever read.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.5 stars, really. I think this one suffered from the usual curse of middle books in trilogies: all that can really happen in the overall story arc is character development, and whatever plot there is winds up being secondary (or unnecessary) to the overall story arc. Still a fun read.
Excellent! Reminds me more and more of CJ Cherryh. Ready to dive directly into Ancillary Mercy!
Felt a bit stagnant, like it was tying up things from last book and paving the way for the next one and just generally filling out the world, but I am so in love with the world that I don't even care.
This is definitely a middle chapter-- despite the bold ending of the last novel, this one takes a surprising amount of time to get going, and then when it ends, it lacks the kind of big reveal of the new stakes that the last book had. In short, it feels pretty weird as a reading experience.
That said, there's still a lot to like in this-- Leckie seems to mostly let go of the gender-and-identity themes of the first book and dig more deeply into questions of colonialism and slavery in this book. Maybe strangely, that doesn't concern the ethics of ancilaries much, but instead deals with the way the Radch interact with the races they've assimilated. There are lots of smart insights into these relationships that develop in strange dimensions, like the role of antique tea sets in the prestige economy. It's more grounded than some of the other elements in Leckie's story, but no less clear sighted.
This has some tropes from the first book as well-- Leckie likes to introduce a character as being out of sorts with the narrator and then bring her to civil manners- the same progression we saw with Seivarden in the first book recurs with a couple characters here. It's an odd tic, but it gives the relationships a recognizable shape, which I think helps the books along.
And if you're a genre reader only, well, there's some intriguing stuff here, about the ghost case and an escalation of things with the alien big bads, which I guess will have to play out in the third novel in this trilogy? Really, it makes me wonder if Leckie will even try to wrap things up in that third book, or if we'll see more books in this Radch universe.
That said, there's still a lot to like in this-- Leckie seems to mostly let go of the gender-and-identity themes of the first book and dig more deeply into questions of colonialism and slavery in this book. Maybe strangely, that doesn't concern the ethics of ancilaries much, but instead deals with the way the Radch interact with the races they've assimilated. There are lots of smart insights into these relationships that develop in strange dimensions, like the role of antique tea sets in the prestige economy. It's more grounded than some of the other elements in Leckie's story, but no less clear sighted.
This has some tropes from the first book as well-- Leckie likes to introduce a character as being out of sorts with the narrator and then bring her to civil manners- the same progression we saw with Seivarden in the first book recurs with a couple characters here. It's an odd tic, but it gives the relationships a recognizable shape, which I think helps the books along.
And if you're a genre reader only, well, there's some intriguing stuff here, about the ghost case and an escalation of things with the alien big bads, which I guess will have to play out in the third novel in this trilogy? Really, it makes me wonder if Leckie will even try to wrap things up in that third book, or if we'll see more books in this Radch universe.