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cade 's review for:
Ancillary Sword
by Ann Leckie
Note, this review does not contain spoilers for this book, but it could potentially be considered to contain spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, Ancillary Justice.
This is a TERRIBLE book. At the beginning of this book, a civil war has just broken out in a mighty pan-galactic empire. The main character is sent in command of a ship to be the highest-ranking officer in an up-for-grabs planetary system. Sounds like a great setting for some epic action right? Well it isn't! This entire book is concerned only with Breq's involvement in stopping a local bully and with Breq's support for improving working and living conditions for the locally exploited laborers! I know that sounds like it must be an exaggeration or a simplification, BUT IT ISN'T! I wish I could reach through this computer to grab you by the collar and look you in the eyes while I shake you to make sure you believe me. That is literally all that happens for the first 95% of this book. The only action at all is in the "climax" in the last few pages, and it consists of less than a dozen shots fired between 5 people in a garden! SERIOUSLY!!!
This book is all about local politics and gossip and such. It is like a low-stakes, slow-moving soap opera, not a science-fiction adventure. There are a few hints of some brewing tension that may come out in book 3, but this is far, far, FAR worse than any other "slow" second member of a trilogy I've ever read.
For comparison, Ancillary Justice was a bit slow, but I gave it credit for an interesting premise. I thought that after some set-up of the universe in Book 1, things would accelerate in the book. I couldn't have been more wrong. This has to be one of the worst science fiction books I have ever read!
This is a TERRIBLE book. At the beginning of this book, a civil war has just broken out in a mighty pan-galactic empire. The main character is sent in command of a ship to be the highest-ranking officer in an up-for-grabs planetary system. Sounds like a great setting for some epic action right? Well it isn't! This entire book is concerned only with Breq's involvement in stopping a local bully and with Breq's support for improving working and living conditions for the locally exploited laborers! I know that sounds like it must be an exaggeration or a simplification, BUT IT ISN'T! I wish I could reach through this computer to grab you by the collar and look you in the eyes while I shake you to make sure you believe me. That is literally all that happens for the first 95% of this book. The only action at all is in the "climax" in the last few pages, and it consists of less than a dozen shots fired between 5 people in a garden! SERIOUSLY!!!
This book is all about local politics and gossip and such. It is like a low-stakes, slow-moving soap opera, not a science-fiction adventure. There are a few hints of some brewing tension that may come out in book 3, but this is far, far, FAR worse than any other "slow" second member of a trilogy I've ever read.
For comparison, Ancillary Justice was a bit slow, but I gave it credit for an interesting premise. I thought that after some set-up of the universe in Book 1, things would accelerate in the book. I couldn't have been more wrong. This has to be one of the worst science fiction books I have ever read!