Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
Another good book from Ann Leckie
I enjoyed the story. The characters were well rounded and developed. There’s lots of political maneuvering and intrigue. Lots of plot twists. What’s not to like?
I enjoyed the story. The characters were well rounded and developed. There’s lots of political maneuvering and intrigue. Lots of plot twists. What’s not to like?
Man, I got pretty far into this, but I just can't summon up the interest to continue. It's super about politics and at some point I was listening whilst doing laundry and I stopped paying attention and didn't care enough to figure out what I'd missed. The macguffin is like . . . party invitations. Like, this society cares about old documentation of fancy parties and sometimes these things are faked and maybe some are and maybe some aren't! Hoo boy! It's as exciting as it sounds. The world-building is decent but you gotta give me SOMETHING to work with here, Leckie.
Doesn't reach the heights of the Radch trilogy, in part due to being quite a complicated story with lots of politics and unclear agendas, which I struggled a bit to internalise. But still wonderful.
A different kind of read from the first three books, but still very intriguing and interesting.
Ann Leckie is so good at world-building. It was lovely to return to the world of the Ancillary series and spend time with other cultures in it instead of the Raadchai (although they do make a brief, humorous appearance).
I didn't find the plot amazingly gripping, but it was quite solid and moved at a reasonable pace. The politics and cultural conflicts and intricacies were believable and enjoyable, clearly something the author excels at. I enjoyed the characters too, although I found the whole love interest angle a bit boring and conventional.
The ending soured me on the book a tiny bit as it was all wrapped up too neatly and happily for my tastes.
Still, overall I quite enjoyed this, and although it wasn't as mind-blowing as the original series, it's a worthy addition to this universe and I hope we see more books set in it. Someone's gotta take over now we won't get any more Culture stories.
I didn't find the plot amazingly gripping, but it was quite solid and moved at a reasonable pace. The politics and cultural conflicts and intricacies were believable and enjoyable, clearly something the author excels at. I enjoyed the characters too, although I found the whole love interest angle a bit boring and conventional.
The ending soured me on the book a tiny bit as it was all wrapped up too neatly and happily for my tastes.
Still, overall I quite enjoyed this, and although it wasn't as mind-blowing as the original series, it's a worthy addition to this universe and I hope we see more books set in it. Someone's gotta take over now we won't get any more Culture stories.
This is an engaging book and beautifully written. The characters grow on you and the social aspects of the universe they live in are intriguing and interesting. That said... it's a little slow at times: action is seen through the main protagonist generally and it feels like action happens in slow motion filtered by her emotions and reflections. One the one hand it's nice to have a protagonist who does not have all the answers and is scared a lot of the time - but this drags a little too much in places. More of a 3.5 than a 4.
I'd buy a second in the series if there was one to see what becomes of the characters since you get to like them, it feels like the story could really "launch" now... in a way which doesn't quite get off the ground in Provenance. There is so much that could be done with the central concepts of provenance which don't quite come through yet.
I'd buy a second in the series if there was one to see what becomes of the characters since you get to like them, it feels like the story could really "launch" now... in a way which doesn't quite get off the ground in Provenance. There is so much that could be done with the central concepts of provenance which don't quite come through yet.
70% of this book consisted of characters explaining convoluted political schemes to each other :(
I appear to like Provenance a lot more than most readers, and it's mostly in the tension between Ingray's self-conception and how others see her. Ingray is a potential heir to political power, in vicious competition for her mother's favor back home over her brother. Her ambition has brought her to the station of Tyr, where anything is for sale, to bargain everything she owns on the exiled and imprisoned child of her mother's main political rival, who she believes knows a dark secret that could give her family immense political ambition.
Ingray sees herself as dancing along the edge of chaos, a social and emotional wreck desperately improvising to keep from falling into the abyss. The book spends a lot of time in her head, so glimpses of the outer Ingray, a possessed young woman who is scarily good at spotting weakness and jumping at it, is a delight.
The plot has a lot of moving pieces, which ultimately come to a kind of sleight of hand trick, but in a series that tends slow-to-glacial, alien ambassadors, murder mysteries, surprising romances, and a hostage situation on a space station as prelude to invasion, all offer a lot of interesting bits to chew on as the sociological design of Ingray's Hwae culture, focused on veneration of artifacts linked to famous events and people, unfolds.
Ingray sees herself as dancing along the edge of chaos, a social and emotional wreck desperately improvising to keep from falling into the abyss. The book spends a lot of time in her head, so glimpses of the outer Ingray, a possessed young woman who is scarily good at spotting weakness and jumping at it, is a delight.
The plot has a lot of moving pieces, which ultimately come to a kind of sleight of hand trick, but in a series that tends slow-to-glacial, alien ambassadors, murder mysteries, surprising romances, and a hostage situation on a space station as prelude to invasion, all offer a lot of interesting bits to chew on as the sociological design of Ingray's Hwae culture, focused on veneration of artifacts linked to famous events and people, unfolds.