Provenance

July 31, 2017
Hugo- and Nebula-winner Leckie returns to the universe of her bestselling Imperial Radch trilogy with this standalone SF thriller styled as a space opera of manners. Ingray Aughskold is determined to outdo her conniving brother and impress their demanding mother enough to be named her heir, even if that means gambling everything Ingray has. She leaves her home planet to break a famous thief out of prison and get help in a scheme to blackmail her mother’s primary political opponent. But when the person she retrieves denies being the person she wants, her rash plan starts to fall apart. Matters are made worse by the fanatical pursuit of the distressingly odd ambassador of the alien Geck. Though full of the charm and wit characterizing Leckie’s other works, including delightful appearances by a Radch ambassador and tantalizing hints about the upcoming conclave, this novel nevertheless doesn’t quite have the depth and richness Leckie fans might expect. It’s primarily an optimistic coming-of-age story, and it stumbles on some false promises along the way.

August 1, 2017

In a bid finally to win the attention and approval of her politician mother, Ingray arranges to smuggle Pahlad Budrakim, heir to one of her mother's rivals, out of the prison planet known as Compassionate Removal. From the start, things don't go as planned. After a tense encounter with the alien Geck, Ingray manages to return her charge back home to Hwae, but the two are entangled in a murder investigation when a visiting diplomat from the Omkem people is killed in their company. While there are references to elements from Leckie's "Ancillary" books, the action focuses on Ingray, who wants her foster mother's love but fears her scheming brother will forever be the favorite. VERDICT Following up her magnificent "Ancillary" trilogy, Leckie wisely moves to a different area of the same universe, showing that she is still interested in nonbinary ideas of gender in this latest character-centered space opera from one of sf's brightest stars.--MM

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017
A woman seeking the approval of her foster mother takes a desperate gamble and finds herself in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy.To help her foster mother, Netano, shame a political rival, Ingray Aughskold of the planet Hwae bribes a broker to smuggle the notorious Pahlad Budrakim out of prison, hoping that Pahlad will reveal the location of the valuable family antiques e stole. (Pahlad is a "neman," a gender using the pronouns e/eir/em.) This supposedly simple plan soon gets complicated thanks to Ingray's scheming foster brother, Danach, a neighboring planetary government that frames Pahlad for murder, an alien ambassador with a persistent interest in Ingray and her associates...and the fact that Pahlad never stole the antiques in the first place. Setting her new novel in the same universe as her previous books (Ancillary Mercy, 2015, etc.), Leckie again uses large-scale worldbuilding to tell a deeply personal story--in this case, to explore what binds children to their families. As always, she impels the reader to consider the power language, and specifically names, has to shape perception and reality. The title is meaningful in several senses. "Provenance" initially refers to vestiges, the antiques so highly valued on Hwae, many of which are probably fakes; but more importantly, it means the struggle to understand where people come from and how it made them what they are, how they will define themselves now, and what labels they will choose to bear going forward. In aid of that point, a deeper look into the relationship between Ingray and Netano might have strengthened the book, and so might evidence of Danach's much-discussed political ability--all we see from him are smugness and petulance, while Ingray demonstrates far more political adeptness. But since the novel is told from Ingray's perspective, which is that of a woman with poor self-esteem discovering her confidence and true worth, Danach may not have been all that brilliant to begin with. More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.