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lkay398's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
ekchilton's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
tredgwell's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
lauracooleyjohnson's review against another edition
4.0
This must have been recommended because of my love of the Murderbot stories. Because like Murderbot, this badass main character is also not entirely human. AI with independent thought and feelings seems to be the new sci-fi craze, but I like it. That said, this was a book that dropped you into a very complicated world with people, gendering, languages, and norms that the authors doesn’t baby the reader by explaining. So for the first half of the book I just read with blind faith that it would eventually make sense. And it did. I think I might even like it enough to continue the series.
enemieseverywhere's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
this book profoundly altered me
ahab_jr's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
aruarian_melody's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I really liked this book at first but lost interest as the story progressed and became more plot-heavy. What I enjoyed most were the flashbacks with the depiction of a hive mind. However, those elements vanished around two thirds in and only played a role in every second chapter until then. I would absolutely read something else by the author that is focused (with it being the main POV) on the hive mind and questions around individuality of segments connected to it. As far as I can tell, this series isn't going in that direction, so I'm going to quit it here.
adelaidebijou's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
laerugo's review against another edition
5.0
Okay, like, jesus christ. I haven't read a can't-put-this-down book in a very long time.
This was everything I wanted when my friend recommended it to me. We often talked about how we wished Mass Effect addressed its imperialistic undertones, and this has filled in the bit of my brain that has been hoping for a space opera featuring a gender-nonconforming military woman (or at least not a man) that is cold, rude, and interesting to read about. It's Murderbot meets Riza Hawkeye. It's FemShepard in Left Hand of Darkness. It's turned my brain inside out.
Part of that is due to the writing itself—because I have to get this out of the way, this book is dense, not in language but in the worldbuilding and pacing: There is so much going on in from (technically) multiple point of views and in multiple time periods, covering history and context spanning thousands of years in an unrecognizable galaxy. It had me wanting to reach for a pen and paper at times. An interview with the author said that if a line didn't serve several purposes, or even if it did and she could go without it, she cut it—a lesson I try to use myself. However in Ancillary Justice, I can think a few passages that had me scratching my head and rereading them several times trying to follow the logical jumps, wishing she'd left a few filler lines in, lol.
A lot of information is left intentionally vague, sometimes for a long time, to the point where I was unsure if it was on purpose or I was expected to have figured it all out by now. I'm the kind of reader who wants to know what every line means and struggles to move on if I don't fully comprehend a passage, so you can imagine how this was difficult for me with, especially so many names and events to keep track of. All compounded by how Breq is an unreliable narrator who loves to speak vaguely out of paranoia—but once I got into the flow, she became a really interesting protagonist. Why hasn't the story addressed Important Thing yet? Is Breq intentionally avoiding thinking about it, or is it a result of her programming not allowing her to? All of these are valid questions you should probably be asking. I got caught up in a lot of these leaps, wondering where the bridge was or if I'd have to build it myself, because the book grabs you by the throat and drags you into the car and barely ever pulls its foot from the gas, not even bothering to check if you've put your seat belt on. I do like books like this, but man do they leave you rattled sometimes.
One of most memorable things about this book—like Left Hand—is that Breq, as an AI, doesn't understand gender, so she refers to everyone with she/her pronouns, which I find charming both as a character and as a narrative device. Unlike Left Hand, though, this series does have gendered characters, but Breq's main language just doesn't use gendered pronouns. In English, the necessary words are rendered as she/her or female equivalents: daughter, girl, etc., even when the character is, as we might learn, masc-appearing. Even though the story is not technically full of entirely women, it became fun to pretend it's about a bunch of really cool, complex military ladies of varying body shapes and sizes. When was the last time we've seen that?
Truthfully, gender isn't even the most interesting thing going on, and Ancillary Justice doesn't care if you're hung up about it. It trusts the reader to piece together and do a lot of introspection on their own. Which might be the reason I enjoyed it so much: It feels like a scifi story written for people who've already seen the space operas about big topics. It features an imperial empire, but fighting the big evil? Breq doesn't care about human morality. Defending the oppressed? Not even secondary on her to-do list. The fact that she ends up helping people is entirely coincidental, or so she'd say. She's actually a bit of a hypocrite about a lot of things, but she's on a suicide mission, and she doesn't lie to herself about why she's doing it: for herself. She in fact mostly refuses to think about the "why" at all. The fact that her actions may spark a civil war and threaten galactic society is all white noise. She has a duty to fulfill, although whether that duty is self-imposed or coded into her programming is as big a mystery to her as it is to us, but it's the question at the center. Are we more than our programming, literal or sociological? And if we have a thought against our programming, does it matter if it doesn't inspire action or speech?
This was everything I wanted when my friend recommended it to me. We often talked about how we wished Mass Effect addressed its imperialistic undertones, and this has filled in the bit of my brain that has been hoping for a space opera featuring a gender-nonconforming military woman (or at least not a man) that is cold, rude, and interesting to read about. It's Murderbot meets Riza Hawkeye. It's FemShepard in Left Hand of Darkness. It's turned my brain inside out.
Part of that is due to the writing itself—because I have to get this out of the way, this book is dense, not in language but in the worldbuilding and pacing: There is so much going on in from (technically) multiple point of views and in multiple time periods, covering history and context spanning thousands of years in an unrecognizable galaxy. It had me wanting to reach for a pen and paper at times. An interview with the author said that if a line didn't serve several purposes, or even if it did and she could go without it, she cut it—a lesson I try to use myself. However in Ancillary Justice, I can think a few passages that had me scratching my head and rereading them several times trying to follow the logical jumps, wishing she'd left a few filler lines in, lol.
A lot of information is left intentionally vague, sometimes for a long time, to the point where I was unsure if it was on purpose or I was expected to have figured it all out by now. I'm the kind of reader who wants to know what every line means and struggles to move on if I don't fully comprehend a passage, so you can imagine how this was difficult for me with, especially so many names and events to keep track of. All compounded by how Breq is an unreliable narrator who loves to speak vaguely out of paranoia—but once I got into the flow, she became a really interesting protagonist. Why hasn't the story addressed Important Thing yet? Is Breq intentionally avoiding thinking about it, or is it a result of her programming not allowing her to? All of these are valid questions you should probably be asking. I got caught up in a lot of these leaps, wondering where the bridge was or if I'd have to build it myself, because the book grabs you by the throat and drags you into the car and barely ever pulls its foot from the gas, not even bothering to check if you've put your seat belt on. I do like books like this, but man do they leave you rattled sometimes.
One of most memorable things about this book—like Left Hand—is that Breq, as an AI, doesn't understand gender, so she refers to everyone with she/her pronouns, which I find charming both as a character and as a narrative device. Unlike Left Hand, though, this series does have gendered characters, but Breq's main language just doesn't use gendered pronouns. In English, the necessary words are rendered as she/her or female equivalents: daughter, girl, etc., even when the character is, as we might learn, masc-appearing. Even though the story is not technically full of entirely women, it became fun to pretend it's about a bunch of really cool, complex military ladies of varying body shapes and sizes. When was the last time we've seen that?
Truthfully, gender isn't even the most interesting thing going on, and Ancillary Justice doesn't care if you're hung up about it. It trusts the reader to piece together and do a lot of introspection on their own. Which might be the reason I enjoyed it so much: It feels like a scifi story written for people who've already seen the space operas about big topics. It features an imperial empire, but fighting the big evil? Breq doesn't care about human morality. Defending the oppressed? Not even secondary on her to-do list. The fact that she ends up helping people is entirely coincidental, or so she'd say. She's actually a bit of a hypocrite about a lot of things, but she's on a suicide mission, and she doesn't lie to herself about why she's doing it: for herself. She in fact mostly refuses to think about the "why" at all. The fact that her actions may spark a civil war and threaten galactic society is all white noise. She has a duty to fulfill, although whether that duty is self-imposed or coded into her programming is as big a mystery to her as it is to us, but it's the question at the center. Are we more than our programming, literal or sociological? And if we have a thought against our programming, does it matter if it doesn't inspire action or speech?