I have been getting yelled at to read this book for years. I tried, really, but I just could not get into this. I finally decided to throw in the white towel and call it a DNF.

I was told that the book gets better, but I am not in the mood to suffer through trying to get to better. At 50 percent my major issues were that the world-building was not working for me, I could not get into the characters, and the writing was causing me keep mumbling to myself "what?!" and not in a good way.

I think the fact that the book is told through two separate POV/timelines is what through me off the most. I started having flashbacks to "The Girl Before" and am going to just beg authors to stop doing this mess. It's a gimmick that most often does not play out very well unless the two people have really distinct separate voices. For me the of Breq was not doing enough for me to care one way or the other. 

The writing was hard to get past for me:

"I turned to look at her, to study her face. She was taller than most Nilters, but fat and pale as any of them."

What the hell is a Nilters. Why does this book keep introducing things and act like I should already know what it is?

 

"She out-bulked me, but I was taller, and I was also considerably stronger than I looked. She didn’t realize what she was playing with. She was probably male, to judge from the angular mazelike patterns quilting her shirt."

Blinks. 

"She’d taken kef, I guessed. Most people will tell you that kef suppresses emotion, which it does, but that’s not all it does. There was a time when I could have explained exactly what kef does, and how, but I’m not what I once was. As far as I knew, people took kef so they could stop feeling something. Or because they believed that, emotions out of the way, supreme rationality would result, utter logic, true enlightenment. But it doesn’t work that way."

 

I swear most of this book reminds me of the time my friends and I went drinking in the woods and were having huge thoughts about space, stars, and aliens. And of course I was sober the next day and realized we were all talking out of our ass.

The flow was awful. It took me forever it felt like to just get up to 10 pages. I had to keep re-reading so much of the paragraphs before I would end up with 10 different questions when I would finish one sentence. 

There are two other books in this series, and obviously based on this review I am not going to go forward with reading them.  

I don't play Cards Against Humanity or even know that much about it, but I still love this Imperial Radch-themed version. I found out about it via Twitter. Some nice examples: 

http://annleckie.tumblr.com/post/149028245511/chanderclear-the-best-of-tonights-cards-against

My favorites from those: 

What's Breq's secret kink? The sound Kalr Five makes when someone breaks a tea cup

 

Everyone was horrified when the morning cast suggested that mutually-assured destruction was the most auspicious course of action one could take today.

 

Anaander Mianaai's latest cause of death was Anaander Mianaai.

I'm starting to think it might be time for a reread of, at the very least, Ancillary Mercy. The third book in the trilogy always makes me happy. That said, I'm still enjoying the political minefield of A Matter of Oaths and Bren's ongoing search for friendship in Inheritor (yes, there's more going on, but I'm having so much fun with the inner emotional drama).

Translation choices are fascinating.

Which reminds me, one more book and I lose the ability to compare Eugene Woodbury's Twelve Kingdoms fan translations to licensed translations. Sad...

Warning: This post is kind of long. I also marked it as having spoilers, because I didn't bother to be careful about what I mentioned and what I didn't.

I start off with all the updates I never made, and end with more general comments about the book and trilogy as a whole.

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“I shouldn't've...that wasn't right. I don't like Captain Hetnys, and you know that, but there's no reason for me to be insulting her. At a time like this. Especially to you.” (243)

Like Grim said, this series is filled with wonderful moments of compassion and understanding. So we have Seivarden apologizing for insulting Captain Hetnys, even though Hetnys sucks, because she understands that Sword of Atagaris loves her. Heck, there are even moments like that for Anaander. I can read about Tisarwat and imagine a very young, very ambitious, very full of herself Anaander thinking “I could protect the Radchaai people better than this. I could.”

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I won't quote it, but I loved the entire showdown between Station and Anaander late in the book. I'm so glad Station got to be awesome and actively protect its residents. After centuries of being damaged and neglected, it deserved to have a chance to shine.

Related to that:

 

“I had to do something, Lieutenant,” Station, in Seivarden's ear, and Basnaaid's. “You're right, it's not the sort of thing I'm used to doing. I tried to imagine what Fleet Captain Breq would do.” (262)

Station asking itself “What would Breq do?” and imitating her as best as possible. Oh, my heart. Breq had a great role model in Awn, and Station has a great one in Breq.

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“I'll never forgive her,” said Amaat Nine. Said Mercy of Kalr. (286)

This. And all the goodbyes with Medic and Kalr Five. Even though I knew how it would turn out, it still made me feel weepy.

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“Get on the shuttle, Amaat,” I repeated. And to Seivarden, “You don't know what you're doing.”

 

“I don't think I ever have,” she replied. “But it's always been the right choice to stay with you.” (300-301)

I love that Leckie spent so much time on the characters and their relationships. The Perfect Scene was glorious, but it was little moments like this that made those relationships feel three-dimensional.

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“Your very great pardon, Cousin,” said Sphene, “but this having meetings so we can plan to have meetings business is bullshit.” (321)

Oh, Sphene. I wish I could sic you on a couple people at work next time someone brings up sub-sub-committees like they'd be a good idea.

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I finished two days later than my buddy, but I did finish, and I enjoyed every minute of it. As a very character-oriented reader, this trilogy gave me so much to love, and it certainly didn't hurt that Leckie included a few things that I, personally, keep an eye out for in fiction. Her AI characters were phenomenal and wonderfully varied. Also, one thing I didn't mention in my original review since it touches on some personal stuff, I was very happy about her inclusion of asexual characters and relationships. I identify as asexual, although, for various reasons, I'll probably never mention it in my reviews - I thought about it and decided I was okay with mentioning it in this post.

The way Leckie handled everything was lovely, and not something you see in a lot of fiction with prominent asexual characters. Yes, most of the asexual characters were non-human, but there was at least one human who was probably asexual (Medic, if Breq's guess in Ancillary Sword was correct). The fact that characters were asexual was explicitly mentioned. And then there was the wonderful and complex relationship between Mercy of Kalr, Breq, and Seivarden, which came together in a way I've never seen in even the best stories I've read with asexual main characters. To give you an idea, most of those would have paired Breq off with Seivarden and had her offer to take care of Seivarden's sexual needs herself, or would have set things up so that it was Breq/Seivarden/Ekalu. It was nice to see something different, done so well. And I should mention, I didn't start reading this trilogy expecting most of what it gave me – I just wanted to read about AIs.

Changing gears, I'm also glad that several fan theories I saw (in both fanfic and fan post form) never came to be. There were people who theorized that Seivarden would betray Breq, or who thought that Seivarden was destined to be the Ghost Gate ship's captain by virtue of House Vendaai having been Notai. There were also people who thought that Breq would end up having a baby, sort of the sci-fi version of a baby-logue. I'm thankful Leckie did none of those things.

So yeah. Buddy Read complete. I'm sad that there are only two other stories set in this world.

"Is Ekalu a lot like Lieutenant Awn?" (178)

I'm going to guess that a part of Seivarden still worries that Breq might get fed up with her and leave her behind one of these days. I don't think Breq would do that, or she'd have done it a long time ago, but I can understand why Seivarden might occasionally worry.

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There was no reason anyone would make any memorials to me, after my death. (200)

As awesome and perceptive as Breq tends to be, she consistently underestimates how much others care about her. Even now. I'm pretty sure that, if she said this out loud to her Kalrs or to Seivarden, they would have a thing or two to say about it.

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"I need to say, sir, none of us would ever call you it." (208)

Oh yes, the Kalrs would certainly have a few things to say.