Title and Author: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) by Ann Leckie

Plot Overview: In the empire of the Radch, massive spaceships are powerful sentient AIs that operate armies of ancillaries, known as “corpse soldiers”—formerly human, now with implants that join many ancillaries together as part of their ship’s one mind, serving the Radch in its ever-expanding conquest of planetary system after system. Breq may look human, but she is a rare lone ancillary body from a long-destroyed ship. Thousands of years later, she remains disconnected from the majority of what she once was as the troop carrier Justice of Toren. Ancillary Justice follows two stories of Breq—first the story of how she as Justice of Toren was betrayed and reduced to her single body, then her quest for revenge, interrupted by an encounter with an officer who served on Justice of Toren in the distant past.

Critique: Ancillary Justice is a powerful experience to read. One of the most immersive parts is the book’s approach to gender and worldbuilding in general. All Radchaai citizens go by she/her pronouns and gender effectively does not exist (leading to some conundrums when Breq, on other planets, needs to appear non-Radchaai and has to figure out the concept of gender on the fly). As I read and found myself inadvertently gendering characters, this part of the book led to some interesting self-reflection. The worldbuilding around the concept of ancillaries are also fascinating: the Radchaai conquest formerly had an aim of collecting humans in suspended animation to later be ancillary bodies, with implants forced into them that effectively killed them and slaved their bodies to the AIs of ships; however, new reforms in the Radch have banned “manufacture” of ancillaries although ships continue to operate with ancillaries, which they consider parts of themselves and near-impossible to live without. The prose is also very sparse with just enough description to let you imagine a whole world outside the characters—think J.K. Rowling.

Ancillary Justice is highly acclaimed, but the plot itself is not the most compelling independently (the two sequels, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, fill in plot holes). I was compelled enough by the concept of ancillaries, Radchaai culture, and Breq’s character to keep reading, but if you can’t immerse yourself, the plot can seem to drag. If you can stick through it, though, the story picks up in the latter half/third and definitely gets better in the later books.

Cover Critique: The cover is fairly generic and depicts smaller ships (Mercies, a type of Radchaai ship) skimming over the surface of another (a Justice, like Justice of Toren) that is orbiting a planet. It doesn’t reflect specific elements of the plot but showcases the focus on ships (as characters) in the trilogy. All three covers in the trilogy are the same piece of artwork divided into three, making them extremely aesthetically pleasing together.

Star Rating: 5/5. It’s not for everyone, but I definitely liked reading it and couldn’t put it down—I’m still rereading!

Additional Comments: Ancillary Justice won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and Locus Award—unusual for any book, much less a debut novel.