Background

I’d stopped reading regularly for about the last two years - primarily due to a combination of work, school, and other distractions. Around June of last year, I decided to finally make the push to read the Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen. I’d tried in the past, but the work is genuinely so large and expansive, making it impossible for me to keep up with the pacing, which quickly hopped between incredibly fast and uninspiringly slow (like a “why are we here” pace).
About 5-6 years ago, I completely dropped Sci-Fi and instead have pursued hard fantasy as my preferred reading genre ever since. I suppose this was a kneejerk reaction to my earlier obsession with the genre when I was in my teens - maybe I had subconsciously branded it as “cringeworthy”. There are many, many things to criticize Sci-Fi writers on (namely, the lack of innovation in vocabulary, plotlines, and character development) but I will not get into the weeds with that. Sci-Fi can be really good.
And so, it was a surprise when I found myself interested in Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I devoured the entire series of three books in around a week or so, and here are my rather mundane thoughts. Arranged in book order, of course!
I will try my best to abstain from spoiling the main storyline and will avoid mentioning characters and specific details.

Ancillary Justice

I would say that this is the most impactful of the books in the main trilogy. I did have some trouble orienting myself, especially with the constant switching of perspective. The switching was not a bad thing. I think the author left out a lot of context on purpose as an artistic choice. I just found it very hard to understand what was going for the first 45% of the book. Beyond that, I found myself drawn to the vividness of the main character’s depiction. I will say that Leckie avoided the aforementioned pitfalls I touched upon.
I do appreciate that the author focused more on human emotion than the “sci-fi” elements. I would recommend getting a start on this book. The general world building is very limited, and that only serves to only highlight the bleakness of the world through the main character’s eyes.

Ancillary Sword

Again, a good book. I will say that this was not as good as the first one. We do finally get a definitive sub-genre to place this series into - sci-fi whodunnits. There is less action, and the book is paced such that the climax occurs towards the end. I do feel that at this point the main character(s) suffer from “pointlessness” - the main antagonist is effectively removed early on in the story, and I’m left wondering what the actual goal of this story arc is.
Human emotion is something that Leckie has centered in this series, and I think that shines through. There is a specific character who undergoes a huge change in the beginning of the book, and the ramifications of said changes are portrayed quite well.

Ancillary Mercy

A WHOLE METRIC TON OF TEA.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading the reviews for this book before actually reading it, and something that readers highlighted was the overuse of tea as a “filler”. It is absolutely inescapable. Negotiations with politicians? Tea. In the infirmary? Tea. Lunch? Tea. Piloting a ship? Tea.
Yes, it is pretty well established that tea is central to Raadchai culture but it is genuinely maddening how often it shows up.
Beyond the tea. This book was pretty meh. I don’t think I would’ve been satisfied with any sort of ending for this series, this this one was strangely annoying. Perhaps the tea mania got to me. The ending felt like something out of a Teen YA/Dystopian novel and left me feeling strange. The regular whodunnit plot line also continued in this book, and was emboldened by the pacing and prose.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, a quite good read. 4/5.
The next post will be on slop-writing and its acceleration by the AI arms race.

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