A review by bhnmt61
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

4.0

It's been a long time since I fell in love with a character in a book the way I did with the narrator of this one. Who knew you could fall in love with a spaceship? But really, you have to practice such enormous patience while reading Ancillary Justice that I almost threw it aside half a dozen times. I dislike feeling stupid, and being so thoroughly in the dark about what was going on for at least the first third (half? two-thirds?) of the book made me feel stupid. There is a complex, far-flung universe with ornate religious practices and byzantine political intrigues, not to mention gender ambiguity, cloning that means multiple versions of the same person exist, and single AIs that exist over multiple bodies. It's complicated, and I have to seriously admire Leckie for working it out, even if I wanted to strangle her on multiple occasions while slogging through parts of it.

Still, I'm glad I read it, and by the time I got to the last 50 pages I couldn't put it down. Worth reading, not the least because of the memories it brought back of Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness and Dan Simmons' Hyperion series, which I adored back when I was more interested in science fiction than I am now. And I do love One Esk/Breq. If you enjoy complex world building and stories that challenge your brain, don't miss it.