To win any one of the major awards in writing in a year is a major
achievement, to win five of them is a feat worthy of legend, and it sets up an
anticipation for the story that puts an unfair strain on the words before you
even start to read them.
Cheerfully I’ve never put much faith in awards in general, so I just
read the book…
Ancillary Justice is the story of Breq, who was once the Justice of Toren, a massive warship in
the service of the Empress that commanded thousands of troops and brought the
will of the empire to all the corners of the galaxy, now a human like so many
others. The story begins when Breq
discovers the body of Seivarden, a person who should have been dead some years
ago from Breq’s previous life as Justice,
and makes the decision to look after them against all better logical instincts.
Progressing from two perspectives, that of the present day Breq making
their way in the world and that of Justice
of Toren in the past and the events that led up to Justice becoming Breq and Breq alone, and there’s nothing in the
narrative that marks the difference to the two perspectives because as far as
the narrator is concerned, Breq and Justice
are the same creature.
This caused a particular problem for me, because while the nature of a
self is a constant, time is not, and even a slight hint at the beginning of
each chapter (in the manner of Game of Thrones with the name of the character
whose chapter it is) would have been enough to prevent the disconnect. As it
is, when you start a new chapter, you have to read till you find a landmark or
character that’s unique to that section before you know which time period
you’re in, sometimes immediate, oft times not.
Not a problem for many perhaps, but I really didn’t like that about it.
The other interesting point is the way in which none of the characters are
categorised as male or female, particularly when you consider that the
languages used on the planet have both male and female inflections and traits, and
that too makes for a read that is more challenging than I thought it would have
been. I understand the idea that Justice would only ever have considered
itself a ship, and so too would Breq as a result, but to have uncertainty over
the gender of those that Breq meets in times future seems a little at odds. There’s various talk over the net of it being
done to make you question how you see gender and sexuality, particularly as the
names given don’t conform to normal naming conventions (western anyway), so
there are moments where you do question when a character you thought was male
is revealed as female.
An interesting exercise to be sure, but not something to be done in the
middle of an active story perhaps...
The story doesn’t race along, but the suspense builds well, there’s a
sense of foreboding about what was done in times past and what needs to be done
in times future. Ancillary Justice stands
and falls with the main character, Justice
as a ship is cold, mechanical, analytical, capable of looking through hundreds
of eyes at once, seeing things from all angles without passion or
confusion. Breq sees only through one
pair of eyes, eyes that have the hormonal taint of flesh to them, and it’s in
the those hormones that the drama plays out, where Justice would only ever (and does) follow orders, Breq is faced
with the psychological rebellion that something just feels wrong and is compelled to act upon it.
I haven’t said much about the book and the plot and to be honest,
that’s because it’s not the most complex of plots till the last third, at which
point all the intrigue starts pouring in, the truth about Justice is revealed and the book gets to go forwards from a single
unified perspective. I understand why
the two stories are interspersed, but they’d have been better doing them in
chronological order, with the Justice
section first and the Breq section afterwards, it wouldn’t have taken anything
away from the story and it would have given the reader something to hold on to
with Breq, rather than trying to veil everything till the big reveal from times
past.
I did enjoy this book in the end, but there was a point at which I put
it down to get on with other things, something that doesn’t normally happen
with me at all. I normally devour books in a single sitting, but the
combination of slow pacing and figuring out which time zone the chapter was in got
to me and I needed a break from it.