skygiants | (no subject)

A month behind everyone else: I read Ancillary Sword!

I didn't love it as much as I loved Ancillary Justice, but this is one of those situations where I loved Ancillary Justice so much that the sequel was never going to quite live up to it.

Generally I'm more interested in One Esk at the bottom of the power structure without resources than in One Esk Large And In Charge ... I mean this is mostly a personal thing to me because my favorite One Esk is super passive-aggressive One Esk, and as a Person In Charge she is required to be less passive-aggressive, which is probably good for the people around her but not as fun for me. >.> It also means ... hmm. I'm not exactly complaining about the fact that Esk is now apparently on a mission to upend unjust power structures, and I also appreciate how ... inherently unfixable some of it was? But I do feel like this time around we didn't get as many of her particular blind spots, both interpersonally and in terms of power structures and ways of setting up civilization that the Radch take for granted. She was right a little too often, by which I mean right in terms of plot decisions and understanding people's motivations, and also in terms of modern social justice concerns. Not enough pushing of One Esk herself, not enough growth. I'm more excited for the third book, when all the problems will be bigger, and push her harder, and also probably be super interesting (depressed exiled three thousand-year-old spaceship? YES PLEASE.)

Also I didn't realize how attached I was to Seivarden until she was mostly offscreen for 3/4 of the book. But the fact that I am deeply attached to Seivarden should not honestly be surprising given that she is a terrible snob, a really self-absorbed person earnestly attempting to learn unselfishness by the numbers, and A HILARIOUS INTERPERSONAL FAILBOAT WITH A HOPELESS CRUSH ON A SPACESHIP WHO'S JUST NOT THAT INTO HER.

I did find everything to do with Tisarwat really fascinating; I continue to be curious about whether One Esk is being an unreliable narrator (or, you know, having a giant blind spot) about how much the pre-ancillary personality affects the ancillary person that results. And the complex awkward interpersonal spaceship dynamics were also pretty great, and I loved every single one of the Mercy of Kalr non-ancillaries. Ann Leckie also did a fantastic job conveying a sense of One Esk's Mercy of Kalr-linked perceptions that was still visibly distinct and different from the actual multiple-bodiedness of Justice of Toren. I don't know, I would probably have been happy with a whole book that was just everyone hanging out on Mercy of Kalr, really.

I remember seeing a bunch of reaction posts last month that I could not read at the time; if you made one, link me? I'm very curious what everyone else thought!

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/399064.html

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ambyr

I still need to write my reaction post, but it will be soooooon!

From:

skygiants

I WILL BE WAITING.

From:

kaberett

I ADVOCATE

flower_of_justice TO BOTH OF YOU AND WILL REACT TO THIS POST PROPERLY LATER

From:

skygiants

AHH THANKS FOR THE LINK I forgot that existed! (and will look forward to a full reaction :D)

From:

sapote

Agreed about her being right a little too often! First when she ground everything to a halt to help Piat with her abusive relationship, to my mind - it wasn't that I wanted Piat to suffer, and I think that might actually have been an interesting macro/micro moment where Breq was having trouble not being a spaceship - but if so, how much social engineering are spaceships supposed to do? And yes, Breq/One Esk needed to find a way to get Raughd under control, but. IDK. I wound up feeling weird with myself for not liking that moment. And then again when she's able to say the exact right thing to Queter's family to allay their generations-old mistrust and fear of the Radch and persuade them to go through proper channels in the course of a single evening. It felt a little too easy.

Favorite part: One Esk's complete disinterest upon overhearing Seivarden discuss her own extreme sexual availability re: One Esk. Oh, Seivarden, pine even more, please.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, agreed. I was actually somewhat surprised to find out that Station AIs are generally expected to sort out/intervene in abusive relationships, in general; I'd sort of like to know more about how that works, actually, and if it ever backfires, because I would certainly imagine that it does. And the whole interaction with Queter and her family -- she has so much patience, and so much ability to say exactly the right thing, and even though it doesn't help everything it's all so clearly the best thing that could possibly be said. I keep comparing it against the interaction with the doctor who owns the Garseddai gun in Ancillary Justice (and what a great interaction that is), when Breq was, like, yes, acknowledging the injustice of it all, but also being extremely Radchaai about it, not caring in the least if she pisses the other person off -- and of course it has to be different when Breq is in the position of greater power, and Breq knows it has to be different when she's in the position of greater power, that she has to be more careful. I'm glad that she is being careful, but I would have liked to see it be harder for her.

THAT SCENE WAS ALSO MY FAVORITE PART. Oh my god, Seivarden. Oh my god. And meanwhile One Esk just serenely patting herself on the back for matchmaking Seivarden and the other lieutenant, isn't it nice that their physical needs are both being taken care of now!

From:

gogollescent

You know, it's funny because I had exactly the same annoyed reactions to a lot of the One Esk-in-power-and-managing-everything-beautifully stuff, and yet I still ended up liking Ancillary Sword a bit better--what's more, I think I liked it better because of the altered power dynamics and not in spite of them, though I wish Leckie had made it a much more awkward transition. (And structured her plot to accommodate that awkwardness, rather than relying on the Even A Perfect Interlocutor Can't Unmake A Fucked Up System dynamic. Though of course that's true. Still, how often is the problem actually one of 'people who would do everything right if they could instead wander around banging their heads against the institutional wall'?)

Edited Date: 2014-12-12 01:01 am (UTC)

From:

vass

She was right a little too often

I noticed that too. She was wrong often enough that it didn't seriously put me off, but only just.

I am so overinvested in these books it's not even funny.

a really self-absorbed person earnestly attempting to learn unselfishness by the numbers

That's a really good description of it.

Have you read the short stories?

http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/06/nights-slow-poison-ann-leckie
http://strangehorizons.com/2014/20141110/commands-f.shtml

From:

damselfish

I think I only made a tumblr post demanding people actually read the book because they didn't read AJ when I demanded they did. I never did write up a proper reaction, which I probably should have, because I inhaled the book in a few hours and while it delighted me as few books can (Leckie pulls all the right strings for me) it felt... easier than AJ but also oddly more hopeless. Breq solved a lot of problems but the world is inherently unfixable by one person. Breq's not there to fix the world, but my narrative desire is to "omg but the hero must make it right." There's a lot to unpack about how books focusing on heroes have really skewed our narrative perceptions (I've seen a lot of criticism aimed at AJ about how the plot made no sense because Breq's plan isn't to take down the empire and it won't even work). While AJ has a lot in it about unfixable systems, coming from an underdog you don't feel the same sense of duty to fix it, as a reader. I didn't, anyway.

That didn't interfere with my enjoyment, though. On reflection, it probably should.

My main take-away from AS was TISARWAT. Maybe the most poignant bit to me in the entire book was her reaction to her poetry.

But the story did suffer from a lack of Seivarden but I also think there's not really much else for Seivarden and Breq to do--the crush isn't going anywhere. They make an amazing team, but possibly less so with Esk Large and in Charge as they did when they were ridiculous underdogs who barely had a plan (and it was all One Esk anyway, Seivarden was just there to look pretty and confused and complain).

I think I actually liked AS more than AJ. It swept me along with a sort of... giddy delight even when horrible things were happening. I think AJ's a better book, but AS practically had me squealing. ...Maybe it was all Tisarwat's doing, though.

Edited Date: 2014-12-12 02:59 am (UTC)

From:

alias_sqbr

My vague review of both books.

I am SO looking forward to the next book, yes.

I enjoyed the chance to see Breq being happy and getting things done instead of being as sad and frustrated as she was in the previous book, but yeah her being in such a position of power did make things less interesting in some ways.

From:

jinian

Ahahaha when you put it that way, yes, of course you love Seivarden. I was happy to see less of her myself. :)

From:

kate_nepveu

http://steelypips.org/weblog/2014/11/leckie-ann-02-ancillary-sword/

and just now I saw

http://lightreads.dreamwidth.org/172804.html

which is also interesting.

From:

skygiants

If you're wondering why you saw a bunch of kudos earlier on old tumblr posts of yours, it's because I remembered you'd made an Ancillary Sword reaction post and went hunting for it. Yeah, I definitely get liking Ancillary Sword better. It's not that One Esk In Power (But Not In That Much Power Because The Power Of Institutionalized Assholery Is Stronger Still) is not an interesting story to tell, it's just that the book reads less directly like Utena fanfic where an unleashed Anthy Himemiya goes on a mission of revenge.

ETA: and in a comment below I just realized Seivarden is the Nanami in this fanfic allegory revenge roadtrip. Jesus, no wonder I love Ancillary Justice so much.

Edited Date: 2014-12-12 01:45 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

I HAVE NOT, I forgot the short stories existed! Thank you for the links, that is gonna be my reward for doing all the stuff I have to do today. :D :D :D :D

I also am super overinvested in these books, and, like, I didn't like Ancillary Sword as MUCH, but that doesn't mean that I am not still kind of obsessed with Imperial Radch as a series and One Esk as the world's judgiest human-shaped spaceship.

From:

skygiants

I literally shoved Ancillary Justice into

genarti's hands like three days after I read it. "NO YOU HAVE TO READ IT NOW otherwise it'll get overhyped and I won't be able to help overhyping it and you'll get resentful of it and won't like it! THE TIME IS NOW."

Yeah, I think that's a really good point -- in the first book we all know that One Esk had no chance to change the whole of the Radch, and all she needed to do was make one choice that mattered, one right choice. But now that she's survived that one right choice and grown in power, that one right choice has to be made again and again and again and again and it still won't always do much good. Which ... is I think a true thing to say, and (as with a couple of comments on here) thinking of it that way makes me like what the book is doing more than I did, even though it's less fun for me personally to read, and even though I think it could have been done better.

Yeah, I'm not sure what else there is for Seivarden and Breq to do either but I've been spoiled by fanfic -- "I like this dynamic! MORE OF THIS PLEASE." Well, that's not quite true, I do think that Seivarden's journey is not done, because recovering from addiction and long years of being kind of a jerk are not easy, and we got hints of that towards the end and presumably will have more in the next book. But Tisarwat is FASCINATING, I'm certainly not complaining about the amount of Tisarwat.

From:

skygiants

Thanks for linking!

I'm not sure I would describe One Esk in Sword as 'happy' exactly -- I think Tisarwat's constant flashes of anger and self-frustration that won't ever go away are a pretty good parallel to the way that One Esk probably feels a lot of the time -- but yeah, she definitely has more scope for movement now, and a ship that loves her, and that means a lot. But I still want to see her pushed more to grow.

From:

skygiants

It's the Diana Wynne Jones thing. :( Characters who are explicitly acknowledged as awful in petty ways and then have to try and do better are kryptonite to me. Mitt Alhamittson! Nanami Kiryuu!

(There's a significant dividing line somewhere here between this and REDEMPTION ARC FOR THE EVIL WOOBIE which I usually don't like at all, and, like, I think I know what the difference is but I'm having trouble putting it into words.)

From:

skygiants

Thank you for linking! :)

From:

cahn

Here's my review. There were a lot of things I liked about it. But I... sort of thought that it was trying too hard to make Breq into a social justice warrior?

I also thought it might have benefited from another narrator (my vote would have been Tisarwat).

From:

kate_nepveu

Welcome! (DW, why randomly dropping comment notification emails?)

From:

gogollescent

sdkgslj THAT COMMENT HONESTLY MAKES ME LIKE SEIVARDEN A LOT BETTER. Or rather, I like Seivarden as it is, I am just always looking for that +5 to curry powder.

I really do love One Esk's single-minded revenge drive, too, although I think I began to struggle with it towards the end of AJ because... up till then the rest of the world was merrily unconcerned with One Esk's quest, but in the last third I started feeling like *everything* was ticking towards the ordained final confrontation, and it flattened the story a bit for me. I want to make a Bring up the Bodies comparison here but am not sure either our favorite spaceship or Cromwell would appreciate it. :'I

From:

skygiants

"She was never one of my favorite duelists," says One Esk, serenely watching Seivarden be trampled by a horde of elephants.

(I guess that makes Progressive Mianaai Dios and Reactionary Mianaai Akio? Drinking milkshakes on the merry-go-round as Lieutenant Awn is stabbed from behind!)

Yeah, I mean, I agree with that; I'd forgotten just how much everything starts zooming into the final confrontation, and on the reread I was like "-- wait, now? Already? What happened to months of trying to get her attention while the uncaring and oppressive bureaucracy of empire continued to grind itself unceasingly onward?"

...I tried to follow the Bring Up the Bodies comparison but then I just got stuck on imagining how happy Cromwell would be if his entire Cromwellian empire could just be staffed by ancillary Cromwells.

From:

skygiants

Thanks for the link!

"Social justice warrior" is one of those phrases, like "Mary Sue," that I instinctively cringe whenever I see it used because it's used so often as a weapon in ways that make me uncomfortable.

...that said, yeah, I kind of agree that I don't 100% believe in One Esk's sudden firm commitment to social justice as understood in a 21st-century context. I think the first book avoided that more by having her morality center around the citizen/noncitizen distinction; maybe if that had been hit harder? I think if we were going to go down that road I wanted more jarring disconnects between One Esk's perception of ethics and mine.

I ALSO would have loved to have Tisarwat as a narrator, and I actually think a narrative split (like we had between past-Justice of Toren and present-One Esk in the last book) might have worked really well.

From:

gogollescent

oh my god Anaander Mianaai's origin story explained. re: Cromwell, not Dios, although the Dios thing is also amazing. No, okay, admittedly if Mianaai had started out as a Cromwell figure she would probably be a lot less... wedded to princely expansion rather than semi-dodgy home reform...

Anyway, Awn and One Esk in a Utena context is the saddest thing in the world. Jesus. Awn's so DEAD, I appreciate that in a character.