The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 1

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Chapters 1-4.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later chapters/books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

Chapter 1 was kind of the obligatory "Last time in Imperial Radch" but it wasn't too bad. I'd forgotten about all the "she" pronouns - I'll have to re-adjust. I'm hoping we get some exploration of Breq's association with the ship, mostly because I want to see more of the ship.

I like the recap because I've forgotten a lot of detail already. And it didn't seem like a ton of it.

I wonder what Breq suspects about Lt. Tisarwat that she doesn't want Anaander Mianaai to know of.

Maybe the Lt. is really one of her clones?

I hadn't considered the Lt. could be a clone - I was under the impression that all of Anaander's clones were the same looking except for age, which then seems like it'd be easy to tell who was Anaander and who was not. But something definitely is going on with the Tisarwat - between the arbitrary way she was added to the ship's crew and being loaded up to her eyeballs in drugs...

I also wonder if the addition of all the expensive glassware is going to have some future importance or if its just showing some crew/captain interaction.

I know that all the bodies are identical clones, or at least that's what we've been lead to believe. I think it would be a good bit of misdirection.

And Yeah, the glassware thing is weird.

I've gotten into this book a lot faster than the previous one - maybe because I know a bit about the world already.

I really am liking the multiple vs. singular point of view, and I'm glad Breq can still use the ship to see/sense the activities of those around her. And I like how she handled the situation with Lt. Tisarwat. Pretty much anything else I say about that will be a spoiler, although just of this section. The lead-in to chapter 2 about the pain of being made an ancillary paid off pretty quickly with Tisarwat.

Also, interesting how the past captain has all of the human crew acting as ancillaries instead of as individuals. I wonder if that will change as the book moves forward.

Ch 3

So looks like I guessed right. I don't know what put the idea there. Normally I try not to think too hard about what might happen next.

I'm curious to see the after effects of the surgery.

Well I was impressed because the idea never crossed my mind! I guess all that in-depth analysis on the Harry Potter thread carried over for you!

So much talk about the glassware still but...it may just be dishes.

Yeah, I think every chapter so far has spent some time on the dishes..

Regarding Breq's looking into Tisarwat's background in chapter 2 this bit about her education stuck out:

Done well at math, had an enthusiasm but no gift for poetry, lacked both for history.

Math, poetry and history as priorities or purpose for an education ...

Along with the obsessions with porcelain this makes me think of parallels with Chinese dynasty upper classes.

I like it! For one thing, I like the porcelain obsession explained.

I was hesitant to start this book because I thought I'd be immediately lost, and thought maybe I'd be better off giving Ancillary Justice a re-read first to refresh my memory. Not to worry though; as others have pointed out, the first chapter seems to be dedicated to getting us back up to speed. The exposition-heavy narration was actually a bit jarring for me, the last genre book I read having been The Mirror Empire and its "throw-you-in-at-the-deep-end-and-let-you-sink-or-swim" style.

I'd describe the Mirror Empire as throw-you-in-at-the-deep-end-and-watch-the-pretty-fish-as-you-drown.

Lindsay wrote: "I'd describe the Mirror Empire as throw-you-in-at-the-deep-end-and-watch-the-pretty-fish-as-you-drown."

About right.