ANCILLARY JUSTICE: BOOK REVIEW
With record-breaking accolades and an inventive approach to the space opera form, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice (2013) stands out amidst the sci-fi offerings of the last ten years. It begins a loose trilogy including Ancillary Sword (2014) and Ancillary Mercy (2015). It is also the only novel in sci-fi history to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, amongst several others. Many critics have deemed it a natural heir to the feminist sci-fi works of the 70s and 80s, namely Ursula Le Guin’s, for the depth of its world, its political focus, and its attention to gender and embodiment.
Friends, peers, and newsletters have urged me to read this book for years. When I finally got my hands on a copy, Ancillary Justice did not disappoint. From page one, the book blends sci-fi adventure thrills with in-depth explorations of a broad, alien world. It suffers from some moments of confusing exposition, and I wish it had delivered more upon its promise of radical gender reframing. Nevertheless, it tells a clear and engaging story of identity, heartbreak, and revenge. My biggest point of interest (and the book’s main focus) is the protagonist, Breq – or, more accurately, Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen, a segment of a larger, hivemind AI centralized in the warship Justice of Toren. She presents a fascinating first-person point of view, roundly demonstrating her reality of life in multiple bodies as compared to one. Ancillary Justice follows two related stories: Justice of Toren’s final assignment, and Breq’s quest to avenge the ship after its destruction.
The first thread reveals her full power as a warship with extraneous bodies, or ancillaries. As a spaceship, Justice of Toren has aided in the planet Shis’urna’s annexation into the Radch, an autocratic galactic empire under ruler Anaander Mianaai’s system of bodies. Justice of Toren’s ancillary unit One Esk assists Lieutenant Awn in assimilating the city of Ors into the empire’s bureaucratic way of life. When a conflict arises between the city’s elite Tanmind and working class Orsian people, One Esk and her lieutenant are swept into a conspiracy that concerns the fate of their empire. When they come too close to the truth, Justice of Toren faces a shocking betrayal resulting in its destruction.
The second thread follows Breq, Justice of Toren’s only remaining ancillary, who has spent the last twenty years plotting for vengeance. When she discovers Seivarden Vendaai, a Radchaai lieutenant who has been lost for a thousand years, the pieces of her plan begin to fall into place. She embarks on a mission that threatens everything she has assumed about herself, as well as the very fabric of the Radch.
Ancillary Justice draws on a rich base of sci-fi tropes, leaving no bizarre alien race or bit of impossible technology behind. Avid genre readers will recognize a variety of references within Leckie’s text, as well as a somewhat tedious number of genre shorthands. The evil space empire, ice planet quests, and impossible energy sources have appeared in dozens of preceding sci-fi novels, and Leckie adds little to these tropes within the first book of her trilogy. However, Ancillary Justice stands out in two notable areas: its unique protagonist and its deep worldbuilding.
The double story allows readers to connect with Breq as an individual while growing accustomed to Justice of Toren as a multiplicity. Breq’s relationships with Lieutenant Awn and Seivarden form the emotional backbone of the story, demonstrating her capacity for love, grief, and spite as she develops her feelings for both of them. However, Leckie never lets Breq become too human. She balances One Esk’s “humanity,” through her relationships and her penchant for singing, with her artificiality, through her calculating tendencies and her removed perspective on human life. Thus, Leckie creates a relatable protagonist that feels as authentically foreign as an AI hivemind should.
Despite how confusing a protagonist with multiple bodies could become, Leckie conveys Breq’s ways of being well. In the parts of the book with Justice of Toren, Leckie occasionally creates an “omniscient narration” effect by hopping between its bodies. However, she usually keeps the focus small, centralizing the narrative to One Esk in general and One Esk Nineteen in specific. The protagonist’s actions and motivations remain clear. However, these things become much harder to follow for the antagonist, Anaander Mianaai, who deals with some internal conflict between her own bodies. Because the reader never sees the inside of Anaander’s head, I found myself rereading many passages to puzzle out their meaning. The multi-body construct felt fresh and understandable in the context of a protagonist, but I struggled a bit outside of Breq’s perspective.
The Radch, as well, is an interesting element; Leckie explores its internal politics and belief systems far more thoroughly than the story demands, and it creates an authentic, daunting environment for Justice of Toren’s service and then Breq’s quest. The world displays all the delightful, small details of a lived-in space, from regional foods to children’s games to clear architectural styles. Leckie’s details would be a joy to any long-time sci-fi or fantasy fan, though a reader from outside the genre might balk at how they slow the book’s pace.
However, the double-narrative structure mitigates some of the plodding. It disappears in the last third of the book, when Justice of Toren’s story ends at the beginning of Breq’s, but it effectively keeps the plot interesting throughout the setup stages. It also gives readers a chance to know Breq in all her forms, an understanding which becomes central to the book’s conclusion. Because both plots are relatively simple, Ancillary Justice is a clear and quick read.
An aspect of the novel that may disappoint is its treatment of gender. The Radchaai use she/her pronouns for everyone, making no gendered distinctions, and Breq struggles to differentiate people by gender when she works with other languages. I was hoping for an exploration of alien gender à la Ursula Le Guin, but Leckie never quite delivered; the only real outcome of the language is an egalitarian military system and a universal fashion. Ancillary Justice never investigates the individual and interpersonal ramifications of a genderless society, as sci-fi novels published decades earlier do. Even when Breq uses gendered languages and interacts with gendered societies, we get little to no indication of cultural opinions and differences. Ancillary Justice is no radical exploration of gender, except in the fact that Breq uses she/her pronouns for everyone, obscuring the reader’s understanding of different characters’ gender expressions.
Really, the book’s exploration of identity comes down less to gender than to the multiplicity and potential of individuals. Justice of Toren experiences a fragmentation of self that reveals the contradictions within her, which is a potential allegory for internal conflict and complexity. In all its characters, the book celebrates individualism, especially in contrast to a homogenous and oppressive system. It fringes on queer theming in this way, but it seems to draw more from a second-wave feminist emphasis on emotion and interiority than a queer one on radical difference. Either way, Breq’s process of getting to know herself makes for a touching and satisfying arc.
Ancillary Justice is a quick, exciting sci-fi read, but it accomplishes more than most. Its innovation sits well against its tradition, creating an intriguing literary environment for sci-fi fans and a semi-accessible one for other readers. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys heavy worldbuilding and innovative literary forms, though I think it would be most rewarding for habitual readers of spec-fic. I look forward to picking up the sequels, mainly because Leckie’s protagonist and technical skill stand out in the sci-fi world.