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shottel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Sci-fi has a mold, sets of well-worn tropes that make it comforting and familiar. Leckie is very comfortable with taking you well outside that mold. It somewhat resembles Star Wars in that it presents a world so far off, in time and space, from our own that it has morphed into something with science we simply couldn’t recognize. But while Star Wars smuggles fantasy into sci-fi, Ancillary Justice trades in exotic political systems and societies.
What happens when one person can be many people? When an AI can control numerous bodies? When time begins to become less and less meaningful with medical and technological advancements? Things definitely begin to look a little sideways.
It’s in this world full of unfamiliar, society-defining technologies that Leckie explores several big themes: What does it mean to be civilized, or to exist in civilization? What makes a person? What makes a political system legitimate? What does gender or sex mean when technologically-assisted reproduction is commonplace? Is the self a coherent unity or is it just a useful fiction? Taking on these big questions in less than 400 pages of fiction is a huge ask, one that Leckie handles mostly well; my sole critique of Ancillary Justice is that sometimes it does get a bit in-your-face about its philosophical questions. I love thoughtful fiction, but Leckie does get a little unsubtle at times.
Nevertheless, this is an absolutely genre-defining piece of fiction, innovative and engaging as it comes. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in sci-fi or philosophically-minded fiction.
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, and Classism
Moderate: Slavery, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization
violerwolf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, and Classism
Moderate: Medical content and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Cursing, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, and Alcohol
This whole book is about imperialism and colonialism and all of the horror that comes with that. The writing isn’t super vivid for a lot of these, but the book doesn’t shy away from discussing these topics. I’d like to say another TW for loss of control/bodily autonomy.crufts's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
With Breq's unisex pronoun use, I automatically pictured a lot of characters as having female-typical appearances, in conflict with occasional notes of description that they had beards, broad shoulders, deep voices and so on. This made it more difficult to tell characters apart, since this common distinguishing feature (i.e. social gender) was absent from the narration. But even though it made the characters harder to follow, I still think it was a cool worldbuilding idea.
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Murder, and War
Moderate: Slavery and Trafficking
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
Gun violence, Violence, Murder, Death: Several lethal fights occur on-screen, many of them involving sci-fi guns.War: The continual action of the expansionist Radch empire.
Slavery, Trafficking: Arguably, the ancillaries are "slaves", but they do not feel this way since they are inhabited by the minds of the Radch spaceship AIs (the original minds being long gone).
Sexual assault and rape: Mentioned as having occurred during wartime, not in detail.
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
I enjoyed this and I'm very interested in where things go from here. I like the questions raised nearly as much as I appreciate not being given trite answers.
Graphic: Classism
Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Colonisation
Minor: Rape, Vomit, Grief, Alcohol, and War
troisha's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Ableism, Body horror, Gore, Rape, Sexual content, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol