Ancillary Justice

August 5, 2013
An ill-fated encounter has forced Breq, the AI commanding the Radchaai troop carrier Justice of Toren, to take up residence in a single commandeered human body, impressive but mortal and no more powerful than any other person. Now this sorry wanderer searches the galaxy for a legendary weapon that may be able to do the impossible: grant Breq revenge on Anaander Mianaai, the many-bodied, immortal ruler of the brutal Radch. A double-threaded narrative proves seductive, drawing the reader into the naïve but determined protagonist’s efforts to transform an unjust universe. Leckie uses familiar set pieces—an expansionist galaxy-spanning empire, a protagonist on a single-minded quest for justice—to transcend space-opera conventions in innovative ways. This impressive debut succeeds in making Breq a protagonist readers will invest in, and establishes Leckie as a talent to watch closely.

September 1, 2013
In which a zombie imperialist space cop gets caught up in a complex plot to--well, this enjoyable sci-fi outing gets even more complicated than all that. Those who have seen the film Event Horizon will remember that a starship that got caught up in a time-space-continuum eddy got all, well, weird--or, as its creator puts it, "[w]hen she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back--she was alive!" Debut novelist Leckie's premise dips into the same well, only her spaceship has become, over thousands of years, a sort-of human that is also a sort-of borg made up of interchangeable-parts-bearing dead people. Breq, aka One Esk, aka Justice of Toren, has his/her/its work cut out for him/her/it: There's a strange plot afoot in the far-flung Radch, and it's about to make Breq violate the prime directive, or whatever the Radchaai call the rule that says that multisegmented, ancillary humanoids are not supposed to shoot their masters, no matter how bad their masters might be. Leckie does a very good job of setting this complex equation up in not many pages, letting detail build on detail, as when Breq finds--well, let's say "herself" for the moment--in an increasingly tangled conspiracy that involves the baddest guy of all, the even more multifaceted head honcho of the Radch. As the action picks up, one just knows there's going to be some battering and bruising out on the shoulder of Orion. Leckie's novel cast of characters serves her well-plotted story nicely. This is an altogether promising debut.

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Starred review from September 15, 2013

Years ago, a soldier called Breq was one part of the starship Justice of Toren, whose artificial intelligence (AI) expressed itself in thousands of corpse soldiers serving the empire of the Radch. Now an act of treachery has left Breq with a single fragile human body and an unquenchable desire for revenge against the Lord of the Radch, a multibodied intelligence known as Anaander Mianaai. Leckie's debut constructs a far-future world with a heroine who, despite her apparent lack of individuality, nevertheless grows increasingly human as her search for justice takes her into close contact withboth allies and enemies. Using the format of sf military adventure blended with hints of space opera, Leckie explores the expanded meaning of human nature and the uneasy balance between individuality and membership in a group identity. VERDICT Leckie is a newcomer to watch as she expands on the history and future of her new and exciting universe. [Previewed in Kristi Chadwick's Genre Spotlight feature "New Worlds To Explore," [ow.ly/odoSr] LJ 8/13.--Ed.]

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