2014 books: Leckie
I kept seeing recommendations for a new book by Ann Leckie called Ancillary Justice. I don't remember if it was called space opera, but certainly it's space-set. The Radch is an ancient civilization. The language is genderless, but defaults to female, or at least the main character, Breq, does. To fuel the Radchaai civilization, and keep it stable and rich, they practiced annexations. An annexation is a take-over of a planet or smaller civilization. During it, everyone who might be a threat or just cause problems are killed or frozen so they can be turned into ancillaries. Ancillaries are part of a multi-bodied AI. The Radchaai ships (and stations) are AI and generally use ancillaries under control of a human captain and lieutenants.
Somewhat before the book opens, the head of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, has announced that annexations will stop and the aptitudes (tests that decide your career) will be opened up--anyone can become anything--when before it was only the best and most important families whose children got the best jobs.
The books weaves together two stories. In the first, ancillaries from the battleship Justice of Toren attends her lieutenant, Awn, on a recently annexed planet. In the second, it's twenty years later, and one of the ancillaries, One Esk Nineteen (Breq), is now trying to take revenge for earlier events.
The (non-)emphasis on gender is very intriguing. The Radch don't really care, fashion is neutral. Breq is traveling outside Radch space so has to care about it--as people get upset when mistakes are made, but just really doesn't understand. I found it quite jarring early on in the book when Breq is referring to someone as she and her, then another character describes the person as bearded. That wore off, and I quite enjoyed it later. As another reviewer pointed out, we don't know what gender Breq's body is. It's never an issue.
Breq is now a soldier without a job but she has decided on a purpose and everything it driving her to fulfill that purpose. She ends up with a companion when she rescues a lost Radchaai, Seivarden, who was one of her lieutenants, a thousand years earlier. Seivarden had been in a ship accident and frozen for that long and is now adrift. Her (actually his) family now merged with another, no career, all friends and close family dead. She had escaped the Radch and then started taking drugs. Breq rescues her and they end up becoming friends, of a sorts.
I don't want to say much more, because of possible spoilers, but this is an excellent book and will hopefully make a lot of award nominee lists this year.
Somewhat before the book opens, the head of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, has announced that annexations will stop and the aptitudes (tests that decide your career) will be opened up--anyone can become anything--when before it was only the best and most important families whose children got the best jobs.
The books weaves together two stories. In the first, ancillaries from the battleship Justice of Toren attends her lieutenant, Awn, on a recently annexed planet. In the second, it's twenty years later, and one of the ancillaries, One Esk Nineteen (Breq), is now trying to take revenge for earlier events.
The (non-)emphasis on gender is very intriguing. The Radch don't really care, fashion is neutral. Breq is traveling outside Radch space so has to care about it--as people get upset when mistakes are made, but just really doesn't understand. I found it quite jarring early on in the book when Breq is referring to someone as she and her, then another character describes the person as bearded. That wore off, and I quite enjoyed it later. As another reviewer pointed out, we don't know what gender Breq's body is. It's never an issue.
Breq is now a soldier without a job but she has decided on a purpose and everything it driving her to fulfill that purpose. She ends up with a companion when she rescues a lost Radchaai, Seivarden, who was one of her lieutenants, a thousand years earlier. Seivarden had been in a ship accident and frozen for that long and is now adrift. Her (actually his) family now merged with another, no career, all friends and close family dead. She had escaped the Radch and then started taking drugs. Breq rescues her and they end up becoming friends, of a sorts.
I don't want to say much more, because of possible spoilers, but this is an excellent book and will hopefully make a lot of award nominee lists this year.