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superborbWell, I read both of these in one day in a multi-hour spree, so I suppose I enjoyed them hahaha.
These complete the trilogy started by Ancillary Justice, though there are a few other stories set in the verse-- a full length novel and a short story. The links to the latter are broken most places, since Strange Horizons must have redone their URL formatting since 2014, so here: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/she-commands-me-and-i-obey-part-1-of-2/ (I haven't read it yet).
Anyway, spoilery thoughts ahead. I'm more coherent this time, not having stayed up until 2 AM to finish them...
What I really loved were all the identity bits with Anaander and Breq and Tisarwat. What does it mean to be multi-brained? (A question I first started thinking about after I read etothpii's "When I Look in the Mirror I See Double" and which really captured my imagination.) And combined with the natural conclusion of no instantaneous communication methods between brains separated by light years... Really the sort of question I enjoy reading about.
I loved the glimpses of Tisarwat's struggle to reconcile the time she spends as Anaander with her frivolous past, but being so strongly in Breq's mindset, when Breq doesn't care about that, does inherently make it glimpses only. Oh well. When you get the Anaander bits peeking out and Breq's innate dislike of that, it was great.
Speaking of being tightly within Breq's POV-- I tend to really love limited POVs, so unsurprising that I enjoyed it. I don't think it did quite enough to give you a sense of what was happening that Breq didn't care about, but such is the natural downside. I was really interested in the not-on-screen politics and aliens, but since Breq doesn't care... And of course making the unknowable aliens on screen does make it hard to keep them unknowable!
I don't think this is necessarily a negative, as foreshadowing /is/ a valuable literary tool, but once the Presger's treaty terms were introduced and Breq kept saying she wasn't human, well. It was pretty obvious where /that/ was going. I have to say the last 1/3rd of Ancillary Mercy was just letting the pieces fall into place, exactly as they were set up to do. (Though the fragment of Anaander that appeared seemed... kind of stupid? Is this a side effect of thinking of the more one dimensional 'evil' side being stupid? I'm not sure what happened there, but she fell a bit flat.)
Though not all of my predictions came true-- I thought the offhand mention of how the Radch was originally formed would set up someone from within the original Radch space as it currently was to appear, but instead it was setting up for Sphene. Close, but not quite. Possibly I just /wanted/ to learn more about Radch-as-it-is-now, haha.
I don't really have deep thoughts on the commentary on the legacy of empire here, or how the second/third books felt like it was external events pushing the characters around and then Breq responding to them. (Instead of Breq being more active or it being more character driven.) The choices made there felt deliberate and they worked for me insofar as it made for an interesting-but-fast read. I'd be interested if there was meta/reviews about it though!
These complete the trilogy started by Ancillary Justice, though there are a few other stories set in the verse-- a full length novel and a short story. The links to the latter are broken most places, since Strange Horizons must have redone their URL formatting since 2014, so here: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/she-commands-me-and-i-obey-part-1-of-2/ (I haven't read it yet).
Anyway, spoilery thoughts ahead. I'm more coherent this time, not having stayed up until 2 AM to finish them...
What I really loved were all the identity bits with Anaander and Breq and Tisarwat. What does it mean to be multi-brained? (A question I first started thinking about after I read etothpii's "When I Look in the Mirror I See Double" and which really captured my imagination.) And combined with the natural conclusion of no instantaneous communication methods between brains separated by light years... Really the sort of question I enjoy reading about.
I loved the glimpses of Tisarwat's struggle to reconcile the time she spends as Anaander with her frivolous past, but being so strongly in Breq's mindset, when Breq doesn't care about that, does inherently make it glimpses only. Oh well. When you get the Anaander bits peeking out and Breq's innate dislike of that, it was great.
Speaking of being tightly within Breq's POV-- I tend to really love limited POVs, so unsurprising that I enjoyed it. I don't think it did quite enough to give you a sense of what was happening that Breq didn't care about, but such is the natural downside. I was really interested in the not-on-screen politics and aliens, but since Breq doesn't care... And of course making the unknowable aliens on screen does make it hard to keep them unknowable!
I don't think this is necessarily a negative, as foreshadowing /is/ a valuable literary tool, but once the Presger's treaty terms were introduced and Breq kept saying she wasn't human, well. It was pretty obvious where /that/ was going. I have to say the last 1/3rd of Ancillary Mercy was just letting the pieces fall into place, exactly as they were set up to do. (Though the fragment of Anaander that appeared seemed... kind of stupid? Is this a side effect of thinking of the more one dimensional 'evil' side being stupid? I'm not sure what happened there, but she fell a bit flat.)
Though not all of my predictions came true-- I thought the offhand mention of how the Radch was originally formed would set up someone from within the original Radch space as it currently was to appear, but instead it was setting up for Sphene. Close, but not quite. Possibly I just /wanted/ to learn more about Radch-as-it-is-now, haha.
I don't really have deep thoughts on the commentary on the legacy of empire here, or how the second/third books felt like it was external events pushing the characters around and then Breq responding to them. (Instead of Breq being more active or it being more character driven.) The choices made there felt deliberate and they worked for me insofar as it made for an interesting-but-fast read. I'd be interested if there was meta/reviews about it though!
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Date: 2021-04-01 19:41 (UTC)But it's been years.
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Date: 2021-04-01 22:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 07:38 (UTC)I wish I did remember to talk to you about it more. ^^; A friend of mine recently read the first book and was only lukewarm about it. :/
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Date: 2021-04-02 14:15 (UTC)I do think it reads best if you are already familiar with space opera / scifi tropes.
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Date: 2021-04-02 17:38 (UTC)Oh he is. It's just not his thing? He's more into harder scifi stuff I guess, I think he enjoyed Lost Fleet a lot.
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Date: 2021-04-03 20:44 (UTC)