A review by outcolder
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

4.0

It's not that the gender stuff or the stuff about artificial intelligence is all that ground breaking, but it's an exciting, well-told story. Particularly appealing is the Lord of the Radch who exists in multiple bodies working with conflicting motives. This device also invites useful meditations on imperial motivations and the nature of empire. The Radch culture is sketched in a way that is detailed enough to let the reader imagine a complex cosmology and ethical system without going overboard and overwhelming the action or character development. At the same time, the Radch do not come across as just an old recognizable Earth culture set in the future, or even as a rough pastiche. There are similarities with recognizable historical empires, and we are told again and again that the Radch (and the people they conquer) are human, but overall it feels new and not like a thin allegory. Also excellent are the truly alien aliens who we do not meet but whose minds and cultures are definitely not human or understandable. That's always especially difficult in science fiction, I think.

There were a couple of places where the kind of Joseph Campbell Hero with a 1000 Faces moments were just screaming, like, the character who warns the hero not to go on, or the reluctant sage who has the magic item needed to complete the quest, but I was "into it" enough that it was more of a "Oh, she's studied classic myth structure" than a "Groan, following the formula" kind of thing.

Definitely will read the next in the series.