ANCILLARY JUSTICE
The Imperial Radch Series
On a distant icy planet, the soldier Breq is pursuing a long and patient quest for vengeance.
Behind this seemingly simple storyline, author Ann Leckie has constructed a vast and complex universe made up of diverse interplanetary cultures, life forms, languages and multiple means of communication, and gender. Ancillary Justice, first of the series, introduces us to the intricate system of the Radch Empire, where the meaning of human and alien life is debated, where human and artificial intelligence and consciousness coexist in uneasy yet necessary unity, and where gender is not as neatly defined or obviously visible as on the planet Earth.
Leckie’s narrative is suspenseful and her characters portrayed with insight and humour. After a brief initial moment of puzzlement faced with the strangeness of the cultures Leckie describes, we are quickly caught up in the history and the action of Breq’s quest. As our understanding grows of what the Imperial Radch culture is based on and, more particularly, who Breq the soldier once was and now is, we notice a shift in our own attitudes concerning the definition of a human being and a once-human being, questions of gender and AI, including that all-absorbing one of whether AI can feel emotion, affection and attachment, hatred and even the desire for vengeance. Reading the series, fond memories of Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw and the Three Laws of Robotics will inevitably surge forward, as well as Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which was a precursor in the theme of androgyny.
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice
Orbit Books, 2013
In the same series:
Ancillary Sword
Ancillary Mercy
http://www.annleckie.com/novel/ancillary-justice/
