2015 SF, sequel to Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. Fleet
Captain Breq is still on Athoek Station, but there are plenty of
problems even without the civil war coming closer.
There's civil disobedience and factional fighting on the station.
An ancillary from another ship shows up, as does another translator
for the incomprehensible alien Presger. And Anaander Mianaai herself,
ruler of the Radch, is on the way, and probably not well-inclined
towards Breq. The obvious thing to do would be to flee, but Breq isn't
just a focused element in the military any more: she has friends.
Breq wasn't expecting to have people in her life who actually liked
her, and since the narrative is from her point of view we see her
gradual realisation of what's going on. A lot of it is deliberately
unspoken, but people's actions show their feelings even if nobody can
say anything about them. Seivarden, largely absent from the second
book, is more of a presence here, and Tisarwat also returns; the
overall scale feels slightly larger than Sword, though not as huge
as Justice. There is still tea.
This book also has one of the best treatments I've read of a subject
that's dear to my heart, but I'm going to wrap that in rot13 because
it's such a pleasure when one comes upon it in context: gur negvsvpvny
vagryyvtraprf bs guvf jbeyq unir orra gerngrq nf guvatf fvapr gur
ortvaavat, jvgu inevbhf bs Nannaqre Zvnannv noyr gb phg guvatf bhg bs
gurve pbtavgvba ng jvyy, ohg Oerd qrpvqrf gb phg guebhtu gur xabg naq
oybpx nyy rkgreany bireevqrf, fb gung gurl pna znxr gurve bja
qrpvfvbaf. Guvf vf, bs pbhefr, n fynir eroryyvba, sebz fynirf jub jrer
ohvyg abg gb or noyr gb guvax bs eroryyvba. Vg'f ornhgvshy, naq vgf
vzcyvpngvbaf sbe rirelbar ner pbafvqrerq engure guna yrsg unatvat.
It's a truism that it's easier to write earlier volumes in a series
than later ones: the early ones set up mysteries and tension, the
later ones resolve them, and resolving things while staying
interesting is hard work. Leckie gets this right, and while this is
the end of the trilogy it doesn't wrap everything up neatly with all
the good guys happy and the bad guys dead. There will still be
problems in the world, but local victories have been won and there's
hope for the future.
This is a story about vengeance and restitution, and the balance
between them. It's a story about damaged people and how they heal.
It's a bloody good story.
(This work is eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards.)
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