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A review by timinbc
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
5.0
OK, lookout, the book is a six, with half a star taken away for the TEA, blankety-blank TEA, every blasted page there's TEA .... and half a star for the ending, which I'll explain.
This is one of the best world-building efforts in recent decades, and we get good characters too.
OK, we have a Presger gun left over from previous volumes, and its has to get used; it does.
We have some seriously flawed characters, and those flaws are going to have to develop; they do.
We have a cloned emperor whose instances may all be insane, and Leckie wisely realized that she's written herself a trap with that, and can't really use her/them much. Indeed, at the ending Anaander is surprisingly weak, and I suspect that she has to be because otherwise the plot can't end the way it needs to.
The translator and Sphene are delightful, and the sometimes-snarky AIs are right up there with Neal Asher's. The lieutenants have some challenges to go with their competence (I hate those military books where the characters are all competence and nothing else). Even the decades are fun, some being ready to become officers while others appear to be housekeepers with OCD. Not sure why the Eminence had to be such a complete and utter twerp, but again she had a role to play.
There's a bit of handwaving in places, such as how did Breq become able to do THAT, and how Anaander's control of certain characters became so weak, and what exactly Tisarwat has become, but it's all necessary and not annoying.
This book is not for you if you are one of those odious people who believe that lesser races and lesser individuals ought to have fewer rights. Breq doesn't believe that, and if you do you probably gave up halfway through volume 2 anyway.
And the use of "she/her" for everyone creates some interesting situations. Such as when A cuddles up to B and clearly does more than that behind closed doors. You think, "F/F, M/M, or M/F?" and then after a while you realize it doesn't matter.
Publishers. are you listening? I borrowed these books from the library, but if you produced a second edition I would buy it -- on the sole condition that you EDIT OUT NEARLY ALL OF THE FURSHLUGGINER TEA!
Final decision: This belongs up there with Bujold, Reynolds, Asher, Vinge, etc., and if something is going to beat this out for a Hugo/Nebula it's going to have to be a doozy.
This is one of the best world-building efforts in recent decades, and we get good characters too.
OK, we have a Presger gun left over from previous volumes, and its has to get used; it does.
We have some seriously flawed characters, and those flaws are going to have to develop; they do.
We have a cloned emperor whose instances may all be insane, and Leckie wisely realized that she's written herself a trap with that, and can't really use her/them much. Indeed, at the ending Anaander is surprisingly weak, and I suspect that she has to be because otherwise the plot can't end the way it needs to.
The translator and Sphene are delightful, and the sometimes-snarky AIs are right up there with Neal Asher's. The lieutenants have some challenges to go with their competence (I hate those military books where the characters are all competence and nothing else). Even the decades are fun, some being ready to become officers while others appear to be housekeepers with OCD. Not sure why the Eminence had to be such a complete and utter twerp, but again she had a role to play.
There's a bit of handwaving in places, such as how did Breq become able to do THAT, and how Anaander's control of certain characters became so weak, and what exactly Tisarwat has become, but it's all necessary and not annoying.
This book is not for you if you are one of those odious people who believe that lesser races and lesser individuals ought to have fewer rights. Breq doesn't believe that, and if you do you probably gave up halfway through volume 2 anyway.
And the use of "she/her" for everyone creates some interesting situations. Such as when A cuddles up to B and clearly does more than that behind closed doors. You think, "F/F, M/M, or M/F?" and then after a while you realize it doesn't matter.
Publishers. are you listening? I borrowed these books from the library, but if you produced a second edition I would buy it -- on the sole condition that you EDIT OUT NEARLY ALL OF THE FURSHLUGGINER TEA!
Final decision: This belongs up there with Bujold, Reynolds, Asher, Vinge, etc., and if something is going to beat this out for a Hugo/Nebula it's going to have to be a doozy.