Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

22 reviews

selfsoulfriend's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Addiction

ekcd_'s review against another edition

In terms of world building and general plot style, this book is very similar to Gideon the Ninth - author just throws you into the middle of the world and trusts youll find your way. Its confusing but rewarding once you figure it out... theoretically. Personally I dont like books like this. But I loved GTN because it had good characters and an intriguing premise. Ancillary Justice on the other hand has the most boring, uncompelling, one dimensional characters, an incredibly slow introduction, etc. I spoiled it for myself and was even more unsatisfied so fuck it, this is going to be a DNF. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, and War

kylieqrada's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

4.0

I loved this!! It reminded me of Ursula K. LeGuin mixed with Murderbot?? So much interesting discourse around gender. Can't wait to pick up the next one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Genocide

Minor: Body horror, Vomit, and Religious bigotry

tiredcreature's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-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

Multiple narrative timelines interwoven to introduce pieces of the story at a steady pace;
Vast world beyond the scope of the story;
Rare religious space empire;
Plays with language and translation;
Conveys various linguistic subtleties of the languages encountered throughout the plot, especially as a foreign language speaker would experience them;
AI full of subtle personality; would have loved to see more interactions between AI characters;
May need multiple re-reads;

• She/her, but not like a woman, but like a ship
• The good old days have never been as good as you remember
• War crimes are war crimes no matter how noble your intentions

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Genocide, Xenophobia, and War

pvbobrien's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Genocide, Violence, Xenophobia, and Classism

Minor: Body horror, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

totallyshelfaware's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction and Genocide

Minor: Addiction and Body horror

troisha's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

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

atlas_shruggs's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Drug use, Genocide, Violence, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

tascaraudo's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I enjoyed this very much! Was startled by the

sudden shift in Seivarden's behavior, idk that I believed her allegiance to switch so quickly

but enjoyed the characters and the unique perspective of the MC. 
BIG warning for execution/mass murder. The MC is also essentially a slave to the Radch empire. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Slavery, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Genocide, Mental illness, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Body horror, Blood, and Vomit

ailsaod's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

 I've been picking this book up in my local Waterstones, reading the first chapter, deciding it sounds cool and then putting it back for a couple years now and decided to finally get it as a present to myself.

This book is a strange one - taking place in a universe that contains a vast intergalactic empire headed by a leader whose rule is absolute and clones themself and has some kind of hive mind situation going on. Also gender who? - the Raadchai don't do gender and in a refreshing turn of events use the pronoun 'she for everyone. I have come across gender neutral/agender characters before (the Fool from Robin Hobb's 'Farseer' series is the best example I can think of) but 'he' is used as the default pronoun which kind of blots out that aspect of the character - although in newer works 'they' or neopronouns are sometimes used which avoid this. Using 'she' as default is not something I've come across before and initially I thought it would come across in that kind of annoyingly overstated "#GIRLPOWER" way but it's fine. It does result in some double takes when characters are accidentally misgendered but I found it very interesting to read. I think we generally place wayyyy too much importance on gender - although I'm not about to take much life advice from the Raadchai as lack of gender aside every other aspect of their society is kind of yikes and they have a worrying tendency to commit horrible war crimes.

The book takes place over two time lines, almost twenty years apart, and while I generally don't get on well with that format ('Haze' by L.E. Modesitt, one of my least liked books I have chosen to read has a dual time format almost exactly the same as this book) I really enjoyed it here. Leckie has interesting things happen in both timelines (wowee!) and when things begin to kick off it happens in the present time rather than the past, as I find usually happens in this kind of book, which was much more exciting as you have no way of knowing how it is going to be resolved.

I'm finding it difficult to put into words how good I think this book is - I haven't even touched on the interesting world building details that are scattered about and make me want to know more or how the more you think about this book the more you realise. It is obvious from the beginning that the past time line is going to go poorly but how it does and the impact it does - or rather doesn't have - makes you think. Also the characters make the mistakes of people that don't know what their future holds rather than puppets that the author is directing which makes the events feel particularly real.

It is just a very good book and while I'm not sure how the rest of the trilogy will match it I'm looking forward to finding out! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Medical trauma

Moderate: Genocide, Slavery, Murder, and Colonisation

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Death, and Drug abuse

So many war crimes. A lot of potentially disturbing themes arising from the use of 'ancillaries' - humans from colonised planets that have been 'wiped' of their previous existence and made into cyborg soldiers for AIs to operate.