Reviews with content warning for Grief - Ancillary Justice

I absolutely adored this story. Truly gripping in how it navigates the politics of the military industrial complex through both the characters within and the literal instrument of that complex: the ancillaries. One Esk is a fascinating character to follow and I love how we split between these two storylines, One Esk’s current mission with Seiverdan and One Esk’s past on Ors. The way the memory weaves together with the present day, highlighting the themes and dynamics in both, really made the story feel in conversation with itself. I do think the ending is a bit anticlimactic, but I often find that books I really love have disappointing endings. Definitely give this a read still though! I’m super excited to start the sequels.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

ANCILLARY JUSTICE is a story of slow burn revenge by a segment of a colonial empire against its leader. It deals with personhood, gendered language, and sliding scales of ethics in colonial forces. It doesn't propose to have obvious or easy answers to any of these questions, but it excels in coming at them sideways. One of the most obvious elements of this is the way the protagonist engages with gendered language. Her first language doesn't use gendered pronouns, so she defaults to "she" (or that language's equivalent) for everyone, unless she is specifically told another gender reference. At minimum, for someone like myself reading in English it creates the impression of a world filled with women, even if they're not. Her constant misgendering marks her as an outsider even to those who don't know she's an Ancillary. As a physical extension of a spaceship's AI, put into human bodies for seamless operation, the nature of her existence is the subject of many discussions about slavery, autonomy, and personhood. Each of her bodies had a history before they became part of her, and she is uninterested in anyone's attempts to kill her in order to get that person back. This seems like the kind of thing later books might explore more, but the foundations are laid for now with various debates and conversations as to exactly what kind of colonial forces are to be preferred: one where bodies are replaced with ancillaries of a ship (effectively killing them), or one where individual humans are left their own personalities and might engage in assault of various kinds against the people in their charge. Is the soldier who has already been killed better than the one who will randomly rape the populace? The answer of stopping colonization altogether has already occurred to someone, to be sure, but this is a story where changes take time, and the last body of a several-thousand-year-old ship is content to set up the pieces of her revenge slowly.

I enjoyed this and I'm very interested in where things go from here. I like the questions raised nearly as much as I appreciate not being given trite answers.

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fmcphaden's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The first book in one of the most sophisticated sci-fi trilogies I’ve ever encountered. Crosses several sub genres.

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jjjreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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