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laurareads87'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
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