A review by thevampiremars
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

slow-paced

2.0

“Only a Radchaai would misgender people the way you do.”

I had high hopes for this book, having seen rave reviews and recommendations and the array of awards it won. I was disappointed.

It is not well written (“Her voice was slightly breathy, and I thought maybe she was hyperventilating slightly.”) The paper-thin plot is stretched to fill four hundred pages, with the resulting pacing issues not helped by backstory/exposition dumps. The slow then lurching narrative is unintentionally comedic (dare I say camp?) (the bridge scene, oh my god...) Overall it’s just not compelling which is a real shame because there are a few concepts which could have been intriguing had they been handled better.

I feel like I have to comment on the pronoun usage, which is probably the most talked-about aspect of this book. The POV character and narrator, Breq, refers to everyone with she/her pronouns. At first I assumed this was because she’s an AI and (despite not struggling with any other aspects of human speech and expression) she can’t wrap her head around the concept of gender. Defaulting to she/her made sense considering she is a ship AI specifically; ships are often referred to as she, so maybe Breq interprets she as a gender neutral pronoun. Neat. But it was later revealed that this universal she/her usage is not unique to AIs and is instead part of Radchaai culture (sort of) – they don’t use gendered pronouns in their language.

I had a look at Leckie’s website and in her FAQ she kind of dodges the question of why she chose to use she/her pronouns in this way. Yes, Radchaai language doesn’t use gendered pronouns, but why use she when “translating” the text to English instead of the actually gender neutral pronoun they? Maybe it’s supposed to be a feminist counter to generic he? I can’t assume that’s the intention behind it though because every explanation I’ve come up with so far has been proven false.

Here’s the thing: I’d heard that this book has some interesting things to say about gender, so I went in looking for that. I couldn’t find anything substantial and satisfying so I had to project my own interpretations onto what crumbs there were.

As I said at the start of this review, I set my expectations high. Maybe too high. Maybe I’m being unreasonable expecting Leckie’s debut novel to be something spectacular. But the accolades and the praise... I don’t know. It’s another instance of me reading a book, being totally underwhelmed, and left wondering what others see in it that I don’t. For me, Ancillary Justice doesn’t live up to the hype at all.