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A review by flyingfox02
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
2.0
That felt simultaneously like the longest and shortest book I've read this year. It was confusing, weirdly written, and I had no idea what was going on 80% of the time.
(This will be rambly because I'm trying to make it make sense to me.)
It's written in the perspective of Breq, who used to be the AI of a spaceship called Justice of Toren. Justice of Toren was basically a ship with hundreds of eyes and ears. Meaning, it had human bodies which could see, hear, move, communicate with each other. They're called ancillaries. These ancillaries were basically workers on the ship to support the human crew.
Twenty years ago something happened which led to Justice of Toren being dissolved, and it now lived in just one human body, and it called itself Breq. A major part of the book is told in alternating periods of the current events (what Breq is doing) and the past (what happened 20 years ago and why Breq is doing what they're doing). Because Breq used to be multiple bodies, when they were recounting the past and referring to "I" or "me", they could be referring to any of their human body. For the most part I had no trouble with that. I could discern between the different "I"s and "me"s.
However there's another character called Mianaai, who is the Lord of the Radch (Radch is basically a huge territory and civilization in space). Miannaai is thousands of years old and has thousands of identical bodies. When she came into the story, and we found out that she's the reason for what Breq is doing, it got really confusing.. which Mianaai that Breq or Mianaai herself was referring to.
Anyway. Basically. There's 2 characters here with numerous bodies, which are identical but they also each have their own mind and opinions? So it was challenging to follow who is being referred to, which of their body is doing what, whose opinion is whose.
To make things worse, the writing just didn't click for me. One gripe I have with it is, the weird sentence clauses? Like how clauses in a sentence is sometimes structured. It's hard to explain so let's not dwell on it. My biggest complaint though, is that I felt the narrator (Breq) didn't have enough internal reflection. Like, they'd say A is happening then B is happening.. and we're supposed to understand how A led to B. Or, character A would say something then Breq would say that they could sense character B is getting angry or this and that. But we're not explained how A is making B angry. I don't need the author to hold my hand every single step of the way. But this is sci-fi; it's a strange world and a massive one, it's our first time learning about Radch, the society, the other civilisations, the politics within and among them. A bit of hand-holding would've made a better reading experience.
So that's why I said it felt like the shortest book. I only have the most abstract idea of the plot. I know a list of (most of) the events events that happened. The bigger and biggest picture of the story. But I would've liked to understand the details, the nuances within characters' interactions, the politics.
It's not all bad. For a few chapters near the end, things were a bit clearer, it felt like reading a normal book. The character work is far from the best but it's not the worst.. I liked Lieutenant Awn. I warmed up to Seivarden by the end (though how we got there I'm not sure, it was quite sudden). As for Breq.. not to bring Murderbot into this, but unlike Murderbot, Breq even as an AI is not averse to emotions. However, oddly I couldn't really connect with Breq as I did with Murderbot. Breq was distant and impersonal, and I like my protagonists to be the exact opposite.
I really wanted to like this book. It's won major awards. The premise was so intriguing but the execution is a massive let-down. I'm not sure whether I'll continue the series. If I do I'll need to find a detailed summary down to the bone.
(This will be rambly because I'm trying to make it make sense to me.)
It's written in the perspective of Breq, who used to be the AI of a spaceship called Justice of Toren. Justice of Toren was basically a ship with hundreds of eyes and ears. Meaning, it had human bodies which could see, hear, move, communicate with each other. They're called ancillaries. These ancillaries were basically workers on the ship to support the human crew.
Twenty years ago something happened which led to Justice of Toren being dissolved, and it now lived in just one human body, and it called itself Breq. A major part of the book is told in alternating periods of the current events (what Breq is doing) and the past (what happened 20 years ago and why Breq is doing what they're doing). Because Breq used to be multiple bodies, when they were recounting the past and referring to "I" or "me", they could be referring to any of their human body. For the most part I had no trouble with that. I could discern between the different "I"s and "me"s.
However there's another character called Mianaai, who is the Lord of the Radch (Radch is basically a huge territory and civilization in space). Miannaai is thousands of years old and has thousands of identical bodies. When she came into the story, and we found out that she's the reason for what Breq is doing, it got really confusing.. which Mianaai that Breq or Mianaai herself was referring to.
Anyway. Basically. There's 2 characters here with numerous bodies, which are identical but they also each have their own mind and opinions? So it was challenging to follow who is being referred to, which of their body is doing what, whose opinion is whose.
To make things worse, the writing just didn't click for me. One gripe I have with it is, the weird sentence clauses? Like how clauses in a sentence is sometimes structured. It's hard to explain so let's not dwell on it. My biggest complaint though, is that I felt the narrator (Breq) didn't have enough internal reflection. Like, they'd say A is happening then B is happening.. and we're supposed to understand how A led to B. Or, character A would say something then Breq would say that they could sense character B is getting angry or this and that. But we're not explained how A is making B angry. I don't need the author to hold my hand every single step of the way. But this is sci-fi; it's a strange world and a massive one, it's our first time learning about Radch, the society, the other civilisations, the politics within and among them. A bit of hand-holding would've made a better reading experience.
So that's why I said it felt like the shortest book. I only have the most abstract idea of the plot. I know a list of (most of) the events events that happened. The bigger and biggest picture of the story. But I would've liked to understand the details, the nuances within characters' interactions, the politics.
It's not all bad. For a few chapters near the end, things were a bit clearer, it felt like reading a normal book. The character work is far from the best but it's not the worst.. I liked Lieutenant Awn. I warmed up to Seivarden by the end (though how we got there I'm not sure, it was quite sudden). As for Breq.. not to bring Murderbot into this, but unlike Murderbot, Breq even as an AI is not averse to emotions. However, oddly I couldn't really connect with Breq as I did with Murderbot. Breq was distant and impersonal, and I like my protagonists to be the exact opposite.
I really wanted to like this book. It's won major awards. The premise was so intriguing but the execution is a massive let-down. I'm not sure whether I'll continue the series. If I do I'll need to find a detailed summary down to the bone.