Ancillary Justice

Breq has a mission. Once she was a soldier, she was many soldiers, and the ship that carried them; now she is but a single body, a single killer with a singular grudge. She is seeking a weapon, and a way to reach its target, but she may not be as single-minded as she believes.

Ancillary Justice is the debut novel by author Ann Leckie, and the first volume in a space opera trilogy set in the galactic empire of the the Radch. The Radch is a super-culture, which is reaching the end of several thousand years of continual expansion across occupied human space. Their military forces are unparalleled, both their AI-driven warships and their ancillary armies, the bodies of conquered peoples slaved to the control of the same AIs. Breq was once an ancillary of the AI Justice of Toren, but is now the only remaining part of the distributed consciousness, following the betrayal and destruction of the ship herself.

The first high-concept challenge for Leckie to get past is therefore that of convincingly representing the memories of the Justice of Toren as those of a multifaceted being, and this she manages quite well. Where she is slightly less successful is in establishing the distinctions between the facets of her personality, but although there is a little more tell than show in this area, it is not actually a failure. All of this - together with a distinctive SF universe - would be impressive on its own, but this is not the book's only conceit.

The language of the Radchaai is ungendered, and as a result Breq, as first person narrator, simply refers to everyone as she, whether they are male or female (in fact, many characters, including Breq herself, are never clearly established as either sex). The ungendered language itself is not extraordinary, but simply by referring to every character in the book as she (save when a few supporting characters are speaking some other language), Leckie challenges conventional assumptions and forces the reader to look at the characters without one of the standard props.

The story is both a good story, and makes use of the high-concept aspects of the story. The multiple nature, not only of the Justice of Toren and of the Emperor of the Radch, is at the core of the narrative. The nature of war and humanity are also explored, along with some - fairly broad - commentary on prejudice and privilege, although the latter is not the most effective part of the book.

Ancillary Justice is well worth a read, and I will be keeping an eye out for part two.