Ancillary Justice

The Radch Empire is ruthless and formidable, occupying a galaxy spanning empire by means of "corpse soldiers" a huge collection of dead prisoners stacked in space ships waiting to be animated as formidably armed and ruthlessly efficient soldiers by the ship's AI. A ship's AI can simultaneously inhabit a host of bodies, creating an unbeatable army for the Radch ruler. When the ship "Justice of Toren" is heartlessly destroyed by treachery and manipulation, only one body segment survives. Bereft of all those myriad bodies to control, no longer able to inhabit and direct thousands of bodies, patiently this AI now limited to one weak body is consumed with only one desire, to wreak revenge on the ruler who heartlessly destroyed a ship and thousands of creation for the sake of selfish political machinations. Nineteen years later, now called Breq, the soldier is ready to penetrate the palace and destroy the enemy. But it proves much more convoluted and difficult than expected.

This debut novel was the first ever to win the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C Clarke in one year.

Most people were intrigued by this exploration of what would be the inner life of a multi bodied AI, and Leckie deliberately provides avenger Breq with a dispassionate, remote, rather robotic like AI voice. It may have been a good way to depict an AIs inner life, but I wasn't enthused, and found it all too dry and slow moving. Much has been made of the ambiguity of gender in the book, which I found not fascinating, but an over elaborate device than detracted from the story for me to some extent. The story picked up a bit in the last 100 pages, but even action scenes seemed clunky and less than exciting. Just not my cup of tea, I'm afraid.