A review by catmech
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Hm so this book. It did keep me very nice company during this terrible terrible quarantine time and I am very grateful to it. However it did feel like nothing was really happening for about 80% of the book. I think my problem is that if there isn't any character development I feel like not much has happened?

And there wasn't much character development in this book, especially compared to Ancillary Justice.

Also I didn't really catch on to the mystery beats, which may be a me problem.

Everything connecting together in the last ten percent of the book was cool though. Also I hate Raughd so much.

There were a ton of parts in this book where Certain characters were talking and I went "Oh man. Oh boy. Ouchy." Just. All the politics of colonization really come through in this book and the characters. It was nice to see. 

I wish there were more Breq and Seivarden moments also. I missed them interacting so much and honestly Seivarden seems like a different person in this book. However I think that makes sense as she has metaphorically pulled herself together and is in a position of power that she was used to before the Great Freezing.

Also I found the worldbuilding to be much less confusing than in the first book!!! Maybe because this book was building on the first book, but I thought it also took the time to explain things more often than the first book did. However Breq did repeat herself a lot, like reminding us she was Justice of Toren or whatever. I know bud!!! How would I not know at this point!!! It was fine though.

Nice book!!!! Though overall I did find myself asking a bunch "what is the plot here". Though thankfully I am someone who doesn't really care if books have plot (slice of life lover over here).