After reading Ancillary Sword, I thought I had found a pattern in the Imperial Radch trilogy – so if the first book had built the world in broad strokes, and the second one had got a more focused scope, I expected the final volume to go back to large-scale conflicts and wrap up all themes and plots in an epic conclusion. It turns out I was wrong. While Ancillary Mercy does develop some themes that had been foreshadowed from the very beginning, it does so in a less expected way; in the end not everything is tied up as I had imagined, but the novel feels like a satisfying conclusion anyway. Perhaps even more so.

After the rightfully celebrated Ancillary Justice, I was both thrilled and cautious to see what else the trilogy had to offer; the first book had left a lot of threads hanging, a lot of topics still worth exploring – but could its sequel live up to its quality? Well, I read the second book and I was not disappointed; Ancillary Sword is in surely different in scope, mood, impact, but equally interesting and an absolutely noteworthy development.

A milestone of recent sci-fi, Ancillary Justice has been in my TBR for a while; finally I went in expecting some new stimulating perspective on a number of concepts – identity, gender, power – and I was not disappointed. Title: Ancillary Justice Author: Ann Leckie Publisher: Orbit Books Publication Date: 1 October 2013 Genre: Science […]