Over the last year I’ve been reading books written by women
and whilst I have made efforts to read both fiction and non-fiction, and to
read books written by women writing in English as their first language and
books in translation, I haven’t made a great deal of effort to read across
genres. A recent internet argument brought it home to me that it is truly very
difficult to read without inherent prejudice; there are so many books out there
that whatever your selection method, there will be some preference which
dictates the majority of your choices. Accepting that it is not possible to be
truly universal in my reading, however much I would like to be, I do think that
I ought to read as widely as possible in order to confront and challenge my
prejudices, and also to offer myself the opportunity to find something new that
I loved. It was in this spirit that I tracked down the Ancillary books by Ann
Leckie.
The Ancillary books are science fiction, not my usual genre
but one I have some experience with (being married to a sci-fi boffin being an
obvious influence here). It is a genre which has, I think, a difficult relationship
with women. There are some notable names in science fiction including Ursula K
LeGuin (who I’m getting around to) and Doris Lessing who famously said that her
science fiction was the work she was the most proud of. Yet as a genre it is
dominated by men: both as producers and readers. I’m sure there are a host of
social reasons lying behind this, none of which I will solve by means of this
blog. What I can do, however, is read some science fiction written by women and
I’m resolving to do more of this going forward. As a reader I enjoy science
fiction, so when I happened across an article about this Nebula award winning book
(the first book, Ancillary Justice) written by a woman, and found that they had
it in my library (erroneously logged as ‘fantasy’) it felt like fate that I had
to read it. And when I inadvertently reserved the second book (Ancillary Sword)
first, it felt like fate that I had to read that too (there are three books but
the third, Ancillary Mercy, is still in the course of being written).
Long story concluded. As I read both books, this review will
cover both of them. So what are the Ancillary books about? This series is set
in the Radch Empire, a race of humans called the Radchaai (literally: civilised) who are an imperialistic race
who colonise (annexe) other planets using militaristic means. They are
extremely successful at annexation due to technological superiority and a kind
of ideological purity which is a little bit disturbing. Consequently most
planets will surrender immediately once the Radchaai arrive. When a planet is
annexed the Radchaai employ ships with artificial intelligence that use ‘ancillaries’
– human corpses whose intelligence is supplanted by that of the ship – which can
act as its eyes and ears on the ground, be in multiple places at one time and
carry out actions on the ship’s behalf. There are three key types of Radchaai
ship: Swords which are used for offensive purposes; Justices which enforce post
annexation law and order; and Mercies which are used for humanitarian purposes.
The ships must follow the orders of their Radchaai crew, and their ancillaries
are used to service the crew’s needs and requirements. However, the ultimate
authority is Anaander Mianaai, ancient leader of the Radch. One other thing to
know about the Radch is that they are genderless, consequently a Radchaai will
refer to all others as female, and often has difficulty in distinguishing
between genders when encountering a gendered race.
The story opens with the character of Breq, finding a body
in the snow. The body turns out to be a Radch officer, Seivardan who had been
believed to be killed two thousand years earlier when her ship the Sword of Nathtas was destroyed. Breq, a
mere 21 years old, knows who Sevardan is because Breq is not who she appears to
be. What she is is an ancillary, Justice
of Toren One Esk the remaining intelligence of the ship Justice of Toren which was also
destroyed in an incident following the annexation of the planet Ors. Perhaps
that’s why Breq saves Seivardan, that they are both the sole remaining memory
of their ship, though in the case of Breq she is the ship. This is something I found incredibly hard to get my
head around.
Breq rescues Seivardan, discovering that Seivardan is addicted
to a substance called kef which she
has to help wean her off. Seivardan appears a reluctant rescuee, and there is a
continued sense that Breq herself doesn’t quite know why she has rescued
Seivardan. Neither is she honest with Seivardan about who and what she is. This
delay and necessary subterfuge interferes with her plans which we soon learn
are to destroy Anaander Mianaai, leader of the Radchaai, as she holds Mianaai
responsible for the destruction of Justice
of Toren. She is searching for a weapon that is invisible to Radch
detection technology and was used by a race called the Garseddai to destroy one
of the Radchaai ships. The result of the Garseddai’s assault was the
destruction of their whole civilisation, an event which is pivotal to the
events in this book.
The early part of the story skips between past and present,
opening up the back story that led the Justice
of Toren being trapped in a single body and hell bent on destroying the
Lord of the Radch. What we learn is that something strange was going on in the
annexation of the Ors and that somehow Anaander Mianaai is involved. This subterfuge
results in the Justice of Toren being
forced to kill her favourite Lieutenant, Lieutenant Awn. The result of this
action was that the Justice of Toren
turned her gun on the Lord of the Radch, killing her. This was something she
shouldn’t have been able to do.
Confused yet? I’m sure you’re not alone. Leckie creates an
incredibly complex universe, one which covers several races, several different
types of social structure, different Gods, different languages, different
technologies. An incredible amount of groundwork goes into the first book to
establish the ground rules from which the story then flows. Consequently I
found the book a little slow to get going, but I think this is necessary so
that the rest of the story makes sense. It’s also worth bearing in mind that
this is a trilogy, so the writer has a much larger canvas to work with than
just the first book itself. That being said, I think Leckie does a great job of
introducing the back story, establishing the universe in which the story
operates, and creates something which is highly believable and consistent to
itself. She also does a great job of introducing us to the characters; I grew
quite fond of Lieutenant Awn, found Seivardan frustrating and Breq herself
single minded (ha!) and deceptive.
There is, as is always the case, something unsettlingly
familiar about the world that Leckie creates. Though it is alien, it is not
completely unrecognisable. In the second book Breq is given her own ship, the Mercy of Kalr, which knows that Breq is
an ancillary. They travel to a distant planet where the sister of Lieutenant
Awn lives. Breq cannot tell the sister who she is, and to everyone not in the
know she merely appears to be a, somewhat untypical, Radchaai Fleet Captain. The planet around which the Radch station
(another AI) orbits is used for tea production; the Radchaai have a real love
of tea, it forms a basis for many of their social interactions. I think this
was the point when I started to think about the Radchaai as the British Empire
in space. There were many overlaps: the love of tea, the brutal colonisations based
on technological superiority, the belief that they were bringing ‘civilisation’
to the people being colonised, the complex administrative structures they built
to maintain control, the exploitation of the lands and people that they’d
conquered. This aside, the second book is more intimate than the first. We
learn more about Breq, less about Seivardan who seems to disappear into the
background (a surprising move for such a key character), the story moves into
the territory of strategy and intrigue, class warfare and exploitation of an ‘underclass’,
created, of course, by those who hold influence and power.
Ancillary Justice, and later Ancillary Sword, fulfil all
those things that are great about science fiction. By this I mean that the
unfamiliar setting is used to explore more familiar human moral issues and ask
us to confront them with a degree of personal distance. Leckie covers a lot of
issues in these two books including imperialism, the question of ‘I was just
following orders’, gender, racism, class. She asks us to confront what it means
to be ‘human’ – if we do not have gender, are we human? If we have
consciousness but are technologically based, are we human? Breq seems a very
human character, yet Leckie is very clear that she is not and towards the end
of the first book you are forced to question how much of Breq’s actions are of
her own making and how much is programming? Is Breq really as ‘human’ as she
seems, or is she still a tool of the Lord of the Radch? It is a question that,
as at the end of the second book, I am still not sure about.
I read both Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword at
breakneck speed. It’s a long time since I finished two books in four days, but
that’s how engaging these stories are. It is complicated; I cannot begin to
untangle the complexities in this short blog entry. It is vivid and realistic
and it is extraordinarily true to itself. Alongside that is an engaging story,
complex moral conundrums and a depth which leaves you a lot to think about
afterwards. That’s what truly great science fiction does, and this is truly
great science fiction. I’m very much looking forward to reading the third.
Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword receive an intrigued 8
out of 10 Biis.
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