A brief review of the 2015 Hugo Nominees in the Novel category.
This book follows Ancillary Justice which was a Hugo Award winner in 2014 for the Novel category and has its own list of awards.
Ancillary Sword is a space opera that really doesn't take place much in space, so much as it does around specific stations or planets, while the background and world building happens in space. Captain Breq, former ancillary of the destroyed starship Justice of Toren, is now a weapon for the Imperial Radch. Though for which fraction of the Imperial Radch is not entirely certain. The Radch’s ancillaries have started to splinter into groups and are now fighting for control of the Empire. Breq is sent to Athoek Station, where she finds intrigue, hidden agendas (whose exactly is the question), murder, attempted murder, revenge, and something unsettling beyond the space station’s transfer gate.
Where Ancillary Justice built the universe, Ancillary Sword builds the characters. The characters are given more personality than previously - we see anger, motivation, regrets. We see Breq’s pain at having lost an entire starship of her sisters, now an individual rather than an ancillary being connected to a 1000 other ancillary. We see her exasperation at having to train in a ‘baby Lieutenant’ she neither wanted nor asked for, her frustration with her former lover’s sister refusing recompense for her sister’s death, and Breq’s frustration with a backwater planet that really hasn’t done much to advance the well-being of the planet it annexed 600 years ago.
The character building is all built around the culture of the Radch, where everyone is called "she" or "sister", where to go barehanded is an insult and gloves are a must. The reader is given a glimpse at what it is to be "civilized" (gender-neutral in the feminine; yes, a contradiction), drink tea and swear fealty to the Radch. The reader is offered a hint of the dark underbelly of annexation, the resentment of the people who are working the tea fields, and their inability to move out of the poverty and debt they’ve amassed under the Radch patronage. This had the feel of the British colonization of India.
However, while I enjoyed the emphasis on the characters and the solidification of the world building, the plot left me disappointed. Breq came, she saw, she meddled, and...book ended. Breq moved from the Imperial City, to Space Station, to planet, where events happened around her but she really didn’t do much herself. I kept poking at my e-reader wondering if I was missing chapters. Nope. That was it. Fini. No more. A somewhat abrupt and inconclusive ending which left the entire book group rather disappointed.
Overall, a good continuation of the series, with the assumption book three pick up where number two left off.
This book follows Ancillary Justice which was a Hugo Award winner in 2014 for the Novel category and has its own list of awards.
Ancillary Sword is a space opera that really doesn't take place much in space, so much as it does around specific stations or planets, while the background and world building happens in space. Captain Breq, former ancillary of the destroyed starship Justice of Toren, is now a weapon for the Imperial Radch. Though for which fraction of the Imperial Radch is not entirely certain. The Radch’s ancillaries have started to splinter into groups and are now fighting for control of the Empire. Breq is sent to Athoek Station, where she finds intrigue, hidden agendas (whose exactly is the question), murder, attempted murder, revenge, and something unsettling beyond the space station’s transfer gate.
Where Ancillary Justice built the universe, Ancillary Sword builds the characters. The characters are given more personality than previously - we see anger, motivation, regrets. We see Breq’s pain at having lost an entire starship of her sisters, now an individual rather than an ancillary being connected to a 1000 other ancillary. We see her exasperation at having to train in a ‘baby Lieutenant’ she neither wanted nor asked for, her frustration with her former lover’s sister refusing recompense for her sister’s death, and Breq’s frustration with a backwater planet that really hasn’t done much to advance the well-being of the planet it annexed 600 years ago.
The character building is all built around the culture of the Radch, where everyone is called "she" or "sister", where to go barehanded is an insult and gloves are a must. The reader is given a glimpse at what it is to be "civilized" (gender-neutral in the feminine; yes, a contradiction), drink tea and swear fealty to the Radch. The reader is offered a hint of the dark underbelly of annexation, the resentment of the people who are working the tea fields, and their inability to move out of the poverty and debt they’ve amassed under the Radch patronage. This had the feel of the British colonization of India.
However, while I enjoyed the emphasis on the characters and the solidification of the world building, the plot left me disappointed. Breq came, she saw, she meddled, and...book ended. Breq moved from the Imperial City, to Space Station, to planet, where events happened around her but she really didn’t do much herself. I kept poking at my e-reader wondering if I was missing chapters. Nope. That was it. Fini. No more. A somewhat abrupt and inconclusive ending which left the entire book group rather disappointed.
Overall, a good continuation of the series, with the assumption book three pick up where number two left off.