Ancillary Sword

While Ancillary Justice gave us a sense of the world-spanning scale of of the Radch, Ancillary Sword brings things down to a single system and explores both Radchaai culture and the consequences of having been "civilised" by the Radch. Colonialism and corruption both play a big part in this story, which manages to be utterly engrossing throughout.

The only gripe is that this is very much the middle book of a trilogy and several threads are set up which will not be resolved until the next installment. As a consequence, the ending didn't deliver quite as much as I had hoped.

That said, Ancillary Sword is an excellent second installment and I shall be reading Ancillary Mercy just as soon as I lay my hands on it.

Different than Ancillary Justice, which is good - she didn't have to explain the Radch anymore, so could show us a corner of the Radch. I was struck with the how much I kept comparing the Radch to the Roman Empire - the way the religions of the conquered were made part of the Radch religion, the focus on citizenship of the conquered, the rituals and stress of propriety, all remind me of ancient Roman culture. This book moved along at a quick pace, and didn't waste a lot of time, but the Sword of Inil thread was lost on the way. I'm definitely looking forward to the last one...

An excellent continuation of an excellent series.

Even better than the first book. For those frustrated by the flashback sequences of Ancillary Justice, there is none of that here. A few amazing twists that kept me on my toes. The book doesn't really end--yes, some major issues are resolved, but mostly the story just kinda peters out. I'm assuming this is because it's the middle book, and there wasn't an easy way to tidy things up without ruining plot scheduled for the last book. Looking forward to it!

Great book. I'm really into this universe. It is interesting and alien but... the emotions are detached but... like the first book there seemed to be no story. And then the action ramps up and realize what Ann Leckie was showing you, and how it was important. All those little details added up to something was, as usual, very interesting and new.