Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.
― Ann Leckie, Ancillary JusticeShips have feelings.
― Ann Leckie, Ancillary JusticeNineteen years, three months, and one week before I found Seivarden in the snow, I was a troop carrier orbiting the planet Shis’urna.
― Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice
One Esk is an ancillary of the sentient ship called Justice of Toren. The ship has human avatars, known as ancillaries, which were acquired via conquest. Justice of Toren is part of the Radch empire. We meet One Esk when she and her other ancillaries are on one of the recently annexed planets. One Esk serves Lieutenant Awn, who is assigned to keep peace in the city of Ors on the planet Shis’urna.
The story is told in flashbacks. What happened in Ors is twenty years in the past. One Esk is now operating alone, completely cut off from the ship and her other ancillaries. She is on a mission of revenge for something that was done to her and which caused her to permanently separate from the ship.
This book was on my TBR list for about six months. After waiting for a copy to become available in my library holds, I started reading it sometime in September. I got about forty percent through it and my time ran out. I got it again in November, and pushed through, finishing it less than twelve hours before it was due back.
This is not a fast read. It is interesting and quite dense. No, I take that back. It is not that it is dense. I understood what was happening most of the time. However, the POV messed me up so often, I had to give up on keeping track of all of the ship’s ancillaries and power through, hoping it would all make sense in the overall story. One Esk is Radchaii, a culture whose language does not differentiate between genders. While One Esk refers to everyone as her or she, this was infinitely confusing for me when she encountered another culture who used both he and she pronouns. Since one of the main characters is a she to One Esk and a he to other cultures, it drove me nuts. When One Esk talked about them, I envisioned a woman. When other cultures talked about them, I envisioned a man.
I like the idea of a sentient ship. I’ve read a few Iain M. Banks novels and enjoy reading about the ships. However, telling a story from the point of view of multiple ancillaries, especially in the format of a flashback where the present-day protagonist is a single being, was extremely, extremely confusing for me.
Bottom line: I appreciate the book. The story is mostly interesting, but it was too much damn work for me.