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hwesta's review against another edition
4.0
Always hard to review an anthology.
I somehow didn't expect Leckie's short fiction to be as profoundly weird as many of these stories were, and I'm not sure why.
I liked the titular Lake of Souls, even though it felt incomplete. Maybe it was saying something about telling a story from an inhuman pov, where the human is a side character and not needed for narrative resolution?
I was disappointed by the Radch stories; most of them felt like they could have been standalone. I think I like IR for the characters, and having no characters in common hurt my enjoyment.
All the Raven Tower stories were absolute bangers. I love that world and the stories were all lots of fun. Lots to clever tales of trickery and wordplay and tricksy ways to get what you want or hoist someone else on their petard.
I somehow didn't expect Leckie's short fiction to be as profoundly weird as many of these stories were, and I'm not sure why.
I liked the titular Lake of Souls, even though it felt incomplete. Maybe it was saying something about telling a story from an inhuman pov, where the human is a side character and not needed for narrative resolution?
I was disappointed by the Radch stories; most of them felt like they could have been standalone. I think I like IR for the characters, and having no characters in common hurt my enjoyment.
All the Raven Tower stories were absolute bangers. I love that world and the stories were all lots of fun. Lots to clever tales of trickery and wordplay and tricksy ways to get what you want or hoist someone else on their petard.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, War, and Death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Slavery, Murder, Infidelity, and Sexism
Castration, misgenderinglaurareads87's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.0
Lake of Souls is a collection of short fiction divided into three sections – standalone short stories, stories set in the Imperial Radch universe, and stories set in the universe of The Raven Tower. I read this collection having read both the Imperial Radch trilogy and The Raven Tower, which I think has really impacted my experience. I had also already read one of the Radch stories included here, “She Commands Me and I Obey,” as well as one of the standalones, “The Justified,” which previously appeared in Lightspeed.
Inevitably, with a shorts collection a reader is bound to like some stories more than others. For me, I tended to prefer the stories set in established worlds over the standalones. That said I did really love the standalone story “Another Word for World,” which is one of the longer ones and which explores what happens when two treaty negotiators’ translating device is lost in a plane crash, leaving them alone and wondering who shot down their plane. This was absolutely a standout for me. I enjoyed some of the Radch and Raven Tower stories but wonder how much my enjoyment would translate to a reader who is unfamiliar with these worlds – Leckie is a masterful world-builder in long fiction, and I think some of the stories are stronger for having established background contexts.
I recommend this book as a solid short story collection, but if you’ve never read any Ann Leckie before, I’d absolutely suggest starting with Ancillary Justice.
Content warnings: sexism, violence, medical trauma (castration – not consented to), xenophobia, war
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical trauma, Xenophobia, Sexism, Violence, and War
sarrie's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
TL;DR: A really fantastic collection, some more challenging than others but nearly all were winners for me.
Ann Leckie makes my brain really work. Her writing is just involved enough and her ideas so creative, that I am always happy to put in the effort and time to see what she’s come up with. These stories, on the whole, did not disappoint.
Ranging from stories in her hard SF world of the Imperial Radch to stories in her fantasy world of the Raven Tower, and more in between there is a fantastic range. The best part to me was the fact that even without prior knowledge of The Raven Tower story I was easily able to pick up context, and I think those stories might have been some of my favorites. Even the one story that made me deeply uncomfortable (The Snake’s Bride), I can understand what she was aiming for or attempting to say.
I highly recommend this collection, in fact I pre-ordered my own copy on finishing the arc. A great collection from an author quickly becoming a favorite for me.
4 out of 5 tiny talking salamander gods
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, War, Xenophobia, and Violence
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