sarah reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Ann Leckie is a queen
5 stars
Yes! Radch-adjacent, if you've read the trilogy, and I'm here for it.
422 pages
English language
Published Oct. 12, 2023
4 stars
(14 reviews)
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination.
But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.
As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the …
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination.
But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.
As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.
Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration about relationships and belonging, Translation State is a triumphant new standalone story set in the celebrated Imperial Radch universe.
loppear reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
good, with ancillary fan service
4 stars
Two bizarre alien-stories-who-are-people meet in a challenge of caring over identity and belonging, with mostly-comic reminders of Leckie's prior exploration of this space as mediators and judges at the sidelines of a serious gulf.
Tak! reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Translation State
5 stars
Good space opera, but also packed full of text and subtext about things like identity and authority
Marek reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
An epically personal #SpaceOpera; pleasant characters, a reflection on boundaries, relationships, and identities. #SciFi #bookstodon
5 stars
I hadn't heard that this one was coming until it appeared, and it was a delightful surprise. To my mind Leckie is the greatest producer of space opera since Iain M. Banks. In some ways this book was the most like a Culture novel to date, but it's an injustice to discuss her work just by comparison.
The story, which cycles through three points of view, wrestles with the slippery, dynamic notions of boundaries, relationships, and identities. These three things are part and parcel of one another - you cannot have one without the others. We cannot systematise these things, but only live through them and work at them, rather than fix and determine them for good. The whole story is a process of grappling with that fact.
Most of the characters are pleasant and sympathetic. This is refreshing in a field which, to this reader at least, so often …
I hadn't heard that this one was coming until it appeared, and it was a delightful surprise. To my mind Leckie is the greatest producer of space opera since Iain M. Banks. In some ways this book was the most like a Culture novel to date, but it's an injustice to discuss her work just by comparison.
The story, which cycles through three points of view, wrestles with the slippery, dynamic notions of boundaries, relationships, and identities. These three things are part and parcel of one another - you cannot have one without the others. We cannot systematise these things, but only live through them and work at them, rather than fix and determine them for good. The whole story is a process of grappling with that fact.
Most of the characters are pleasant and sympathetic. This is refreshing in a field which, to this reader at least, so often makes a virtue of cynicism. That's not to say they don't have their flaws, nor are they entirely unproblematic, but they are not out to wow you with how gritty and uncompromisingly grim they are.
Leckie is brilliant.
infryq reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Considerably more scattered but ultimately fascinating
4 stars
It feels like there must have been piles more POV characters in this book than the others but now trying to remember after the fact there were only three? Regardless, I sometimes had trouble tracking what was happening and integrating events into the core thread of the story.
Whereas I tend to classify the Ancillary trio as stories about consent that use gender and identity as world-building color, much of Translation State struck me as the inverse— a story fundamentally about identity where lack of consent is used to highlight or intensify the characters’ struggles to know themselves. The denouement however ties everything together: /informed/ consent, or gtfo.
Bonus brain-bending geometry puzzles and backstory for some of the weirder moments from translators in previous books.
CN for squick-inducing body horror (experienced by someone not expecting it), non-squick-inducing body horror (experienced by someone for whom it is normal), and neutral/normalized gore …
It feels like there must have been piles more POV characters in this book than the others but now trying to remember after the fact there were only three? Regardless, I sometimes had trouble tracking what was happening and integrating events into the core thread of the story.
Whereas I tend to classify the Ancillary trio as stories about consent that use gender and identity as world-building color, much of Translation State struck me as the inverse— a story fundamentally about identity where lack of consent is used to highlight or intensify the characters’ struggles to know themselves. The denouement however ties everything together: /informed/ consent, or gtfo.
Bonus brain-bending geometry puzzles and backstory for some of the weirder moments from translators in previous books.
CN for squick-inducing body horror (experienced by someone not expecting it), non-squick-inducing body horror (experienced by someone for whom it is normal), and neutral/normalized gore and violence. Brief analogue to sexual assault, sustained analogue to SA-induced PTSD.
enne📚 reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Translation State
4 stars
I think the part of this book that I enjoyed the most was the worldbuilding dive into Presger Translators, as this is the first character with this POV. In previous books, Dlique and Zeiat both are wild characters who felt like comic relief foils compared to the over-serious Radchaai. So much of all of their nonsense along with various other mysteries get some partial explanation here. It's delightful to go back and rethink parts of previous books and have at least a slightly better understanding of what's going on. I'm not even sure that I need to know anything about the Presger at this point; I think I enjoy enough all of the wrangling in their ominous shadows.
It is definitely a wild narrative turn to have this POV though. There is a lot of body horror and casual violence going on that is treated very normally by all of …
I think the part of this book that I enjoyed the most was the worldbuilding dive into Presger Translators, as this is the first character with this POV. In previous books, Dlique and Zeiat both are wild characters who felt like comic relief foils compared to the over-serious Radchaai. So much of all of their nonsense along with various other mysteries get some partial explanation here. It's delightful to go back and rethink parts of previous books and have at least a slightly better understanding of what's going on. I'm not even sure that I need to know anything about the Presger at this point; I think I enjoy enough all of the wrangling in their ominous shadows.
It is definitely a wild narrative turn to have this POV though. There is a lot of body horror and casual violence going on that is treated very normally by all of the characters. It worked for me, and put a lot of the Presger Translator behavior into context, but it was also a surprising change of tone.
I enjoyed all of the characters on their own individually, but I feel like in some ways there wasn't quite enough meat on the rest of the story. It's hard for me to really put my finger on it, but if I had to pin it down to one piece, it's that I feel like Enae felt like the third wheel. Enae is handed hir investigation that nobody wants solved and the answer to a two-hundred year problem just appears right before hir. If anything, sie mostly just seems like support for Reet. I would have also wanted some more local politics or repercussions for Enae actually making progress on an investigation that some people probably didn't want solved in the end?
At any rate, in Ancillary Mercy, Provenance, and now Translation State it feels like there's a very consistent theme in this universe on the question of what makes something a Significant Species as well as legal shenanigans of how to determine who gets to be part of which species. The conclave continues and continues to come up, and I am really excited for the potential of some space politics / legal theater book wrangling all of these pieces together.
Ian Brown reviewed Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Another wonderful entry in the Radch++ universe.
5 stars
Leckie continues to build worlds and cultures that turn a lens back onto contemporary struggles around identity and sovereignty. It is helpful, but not necessary, to have read her other Radch books as they do build on some earlier stories and a few characters turn up again. There is also a deeper dive into the Presgers (or at least the Presger Translators), but the author does a great job keeping terrible mysteries mysterious.
Finally, a slight spoiler, in this installment Leckie fixes the greatest flaw in her universe: the lack of coffee. I applaud her courage in bringing this beverage into a heretofore tea-centric narrative.
