I loved the book for that reason alone.īut fear not, there is more greatness to come.
Making us question our own expectations and prejudices and our desperate need to put things – and people – in boxes. The story works either way, but Ann Leckie has succeeded in one wonderful, amazing thing – making her readers think. Some characters that I was sure were female turned out to be male – and, again, it wouldn’t have made any difference had their gender been swapped. Most of the time, it’s impossible to guess. Still, I caught myself trying to guess, by the few descriptions given of a person’s physique or mannerism, whether I was reading about a man or a woman. This is not just a gimmick! I was incredibly surprised by the need I felt to know who was male and who was female (or intersex, or transgender) although it really didn’t matter. In Justice of Toren‘s language, gender is not an issue so this first-person narrative uses almost exclusively female pronouns, regardless of the character’s gender. There are books that intentionally leave a character’s gender unclear by never assigning them any pronouns. No, the first thing was Ann Leckie’s use of pronouns. The first thing that baffled and excited me was not the idea of an artificial intelligence whose bodies include one spaceship, hundreds (sometimes thousands) of bodies, and a handful of bodies who really enjoy singing together. I can only tell you how it was for me, although what I’ve seen on the internet so far, other people are intrigued by the same ideas. And only one purpose–to revenge herself on Anaander Mianaai, many-bodied, near-immortal Lord of the Radch.Īncillary Justice is a fantastic book for many reasons, and these reasons change throughout the reading experience. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren–a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of corpse soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.Īn act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.īreq is both more than she seems and less than she was. What a remarkable, memorable, thought-provoking novel.įirst sentence: The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it. But she always has interesting things to say, so buying the book was a no-brainer.īoring as it may seem, I join the legions of new Ann Leckie fans. I came across her on many of my favorite online hangouts, doing interviews, guest blogs, tweeting and giving away signed books. It’s difficult to find a single negative review of this title, and – if you ask me – Ann Leckie is doing that whole promotion thing rather well. This debut novel is making waves on the internet like none I’ve ever seen before.
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