Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie · first published 2013
68% recommend21% neutral11% critical
Why HN recommends it
Space opera about a former warship AI in a human body, praised for its original take on AI, hive mind, gender and culture. Readers like the dense universe and thought-provoking ideas; a fit for sci-fi fans.
Common criticism: Some find the characters thin and the pacing boring
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren--a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance. Sequels: Ancillary Sword; Ancillary Mercy.
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What Hacker News says
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…Cities, Jane Jacobs * Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis * Rising Strong, Brené Brown * Cleopatra, Stacy Shiff * The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander Fiction: * Anything by Ursula Le Guin * Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie * Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer * Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine ... so many more
on “Summer Reading List” ↗Oh man, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is AMAZING on so many levels. A common thread with these books seems to be exploring consciousness and definitions of self. As a bonus it does stuff I find more from women authors, like…
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗…Walton Feed by Mira Grant The Hunger Games! The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin Grass by Sheri S Tepper Gate of Ivrael and Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh And the fabulous space opera: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
on “What are your favourite sci-fi books?” ↗I don't recall if I read Ann Leckie's "Ancillary Justice" this year or last year. It was excellent. I have only a few pages left of Neal Stephenson's "REAMDE", which turns out to be better than I had dared hope.
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2017?” ↗Discworld: Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam (3 books total) The Lies of Locke Lamora (and sequels, 3 books total so far) The Name of the Wind (and sequels, 3 books total so far) Ancillary Justice (and sequel, 2 books total so far) All of Iain M. Banks Culture series Old Man's War (and sequels)
on “What are your favorite sci-fi and fantasy books?” ↗If you are a sci-fi fan, an interesting new trilogy to read is the Imperial Radch trilogy by Anne Leckie starting with Ancillary Justice. One of the interesting themes is that everyone is surveilled totally and intimately down to even their feelings, but it's not the point of the book and the protagonist treats it as totally normal and…
on “If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy” ↗…attached to each colony know everything any of their inhabitants are doing, feeling, even thinking. This summary doesn't really do it justice - the first book in the series is at https://www.amazon.com/Ancillary-Justice-Imperial-Radch-Leck.... Oh and written by a woman too ;)
…think the first two books (The Fifth Season and the Stone Sky) were great, but I didn't love the final book. I think Ann Leckie's Provenance should have won that year - it's in the (Hugo award winning!) Ancillary Justice universe, and deals with lots of issues around AI that I think many at HN would enjoy. And as for the dead comments complaining that her winning is some kind of conspiracy because it's not hard SF: Fantasy…
on “N. K. Jemisin’s Dream Worlds” ↗…Hand of Darkeness was the stuff about sex and the midevil-ish setting surprised me. I read a couple entries in The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and I might go back to read more. I really liked Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. The two sequels were good but less thought provoking than the first one. I think there is another story in the same universe that I haven't read yet.
…anything like it - Anything by Naomi Novik (so just two books right now) - Vernon - A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep - N.K. Jemis - Stone Sky and the other two in the series - Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice (but only this, the other book was worse) - (Almost) Anything by Philip K. Dick That's from my recent reads (so few last years).
on “Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)” ↗For space opera stuff, I really liked Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword https://annleckie.com/novel/ancillary-justice/ series and Corey's The Expanse stuff (I read the books after watching the series). For transhuman stuff, Brin's Kiln People, Morgan's Altered Carbon, and Scalzi's Old Man's War were fun. Along the…
on “The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans” ↗Ann Leckie has written a great sci-fi series, Ancillary Justice/Ancillary Sword/Ancillary Mercy, where the main character assumes everyone is a she and keeps referring to them as that all the way through (though it becomes fairly obvious to the reader which are hes…
on “Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]” ↗…I'll enjoy the rest of the series. Just re-read the 2nd a few days ago. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Planet of the Apes but with Spiders, not entirely accurate but an apt teaser I think. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie -- Only got through the first in this series of three, but really enjoyed it. I've probably burned through another 250 books in the last 5 years or so, this is just top of mind recent memory…
on “The Intelligent Forest” ↗1. The Ocean at the End Of The Lane - Neil Gaiman 2. Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie 3. The January Dancer/Up Jim River/In The Lion's Mouth/On The Razor's Edge - Michael Flynn 4. Ghost Spin - Chris Moriarity
on “Ask HN: What was the best book you read in 2013?” ↗The book that won this year's Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C Clark award, Ancillary Justice, has a pretty not-glum view of AI. Also Kim Stanley Robinson's AI in 2312 is also not glum. The AI in both these books are pretty cool actually. I'd even go so far to say that the AI in Verner Vinge's…
on “Why Is Our Sci-Fi So Glum About A.I.?” ↗