Ancillary Justice

Women of Genre Fiction – Book 7

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

This was another random pick and it was an excellent one. Space Opera is my favorite subdivision of science fiction and this book was well worth the read.

This book has so many interesting concepts – a ship's AI that uses hundreds to thousands of ancillary bodies and can see and hear all around her, suddenly is cut off from everything except the input of one ancillary; an arrogant civilization ruled by someone with multiple genetically identical bodies that conquers other worlds to increase its own economy and supply more ancillaries, aka corpse soldiers, for additional conquest; a society where gender has no relevance, thus eliminating the need for gender specific pronouns although the characters (or most of them) have a gender; questions whose answers require choosing between doing the morally right thing knowing that the reward is death or doing the expected (politically correct thing) and continuing to live; loyalty to friends and colleagues. All of this takes place on a galactic scale complete with large star ships, high tech weapons, and plenty of action.

The main character is the AI of the ship Justice of Toren. This AI has thousands of ancillary bodies, which are the bodies of conquered people whose minds have been wiped and the ship's personality installed. The ship can have eyes and ears everywhere, so the perspective of the ship can be from all places at once. One of the Justice of Toren's ancillaries, One Esk Nineteen, likes music. This is very interesting. If this ancillary can differentiate herself by liking music and initiate spontaneous choral singing by using other ancillaries, can the ancillaries become independent entities?

The Justice of Toren's AI becomes trapped in one ancillary body when the ship is destroyed. This body, known as Breq, makes it her mission to destroy the person who destroyed her ship and hence, herself. As the Justice of Toren, One Esk, she must decide to do what is right or do what is safe, to take action to avenge the unnecessary death of a colleague or not. As Breq, she again has to make similar decisions.

The leader of this galactic civilization is Anaander Mianaai, a person who occupies thousands of genetically identical bodies allowing Anaander Miannaai to be everywhere at once. But, all of these bodies who do vary in age don't agree with each other. How can all of these genetically identical bodies that are supposed to think and act identically become so different from each other? Perhaps this is a dilemma of all single-bodied beings, who battle in their own heads about choices that must be made?

Reading this book requires paying attention. All characters are referred to as she. The reader is left to determine the gender (or not) by description or by the reference of other characters not of the conquering Radch civilization that do use gender specific pronouns. Perhaps the point is that it is really not important if one is male or female. It really made no difference to the plot.

Overall, this book was excellent. A fast paced, intricate, action packed plot, high tech weapons, big star ships, and alien civilizations combined with a star ship AI trapped in an ancillary body who must make decisions requiring the concepts of loyalty and morality, and a leader of a galactic civilization who occupies multiple bodies that don't agree with each other, require that the reader think. I look forward to future books by this author.