HRO
1/7/2014
My introduction to sci-fi was The Ship Who Sang, which I read when I was about 12 years old, so when I heard that the protagonist of Ancillary Justice is also a singing spaceship, I knew I had to read it. And seeing it included in a lot of Best of 2013 lists made me move it near the top of the reading pile.
Breq, the protagonist, was once the Justice of Toren - a self-aware starship, powered by corpse ancillaries, who served the mighty empire of the Radch. An act of betrayal nearly destroyed Breq, and she is now nothing more than an almost-human who is seeking justice.
Ancillary Justice is deep and intricate - on multiple levels. Gender is vague; "she" is a neutral pronoun and it is never clear whether anyone is male or female. That is a huge theme of the book, and the author does it in a way that is decidedly different from other gender study sci-fi that I have read. It is less about which gender is "better" and more about what being human truly means. Also, there is the complicated political power play of various empires and the complexity of the multi-personality of Breq, all of which the author manages to make understandable without condescending to the reader.
What I really loved about Ancillary Justice, though, is Breq. She's philosophical and emotional and aesthetic and just so...real. Plus, she's a spaceship who sings. Dude.
Honestly, this book melted my brain…. in a very very good way. The author is fiercely talented. I expect this title is going to get a few award noms in 2014.