Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

In the car riding back from Los Angeles, I finished reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Looking for some science fiction after reading Bully Pulpit and Grisham's Gray Mountain, I started searching for recent award winners and this book stood out. Ancillary Justice won the 2014 Hugo Award, 2014 Nebula Award, the BSFA Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Locus Award.

Set in the distance future, the plot revolves around an empire that uses artificially intelligent space ships. The ships control human bodies, known as ancillaries, used as soldiers. The ships are staffed by human captains and lieutenants. A ship and one of the ancillaries are the main characters.

In the book, the ruling society does not distinguish people by gender. This is conveyed by using female personal pronouns for everybody. Gender and gender specific characteristics are also completely absent from the book.

I enjoyed the story. It is apparently part of a trilogy. I will read the next book. While it was much, much better than the 2013 Hugo Award Winner [Redshirts] that I read earlier this year, I am still fascinated that Ancillary Justice won so many awards. It is a good book, but I am not sure that it is a great book.

As a footnote, I read this book as an e-book on the Kindle app on my iPad.

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