Cover of Ancillary Sword

Ancillary Sword

by Ann Leckie · first published 2014

7mentions
3recommended by
7HN commenters
2015–2026first – last mentioned

43% recommend57% neutral

Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she has only a single body and serves the emperor. With a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to go to the only place in the galaxy she would agree to go: to Athoek Station to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew - a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.

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Mentions per year

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What Hacker News says

  • specialist · Jan 27, 2021 · Recommends

    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…

    on “The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans” ↗
  • mattmanser · Feb 20, 2021 · Recommends

    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 and shes). I…

    on “Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]” ↗
  • x1798DE · Jan 27, 2016 · Recommends

    I feel like it's a bit premature to say Anne Leckie has changed sci-fi. I liked Ancillary Sword, too, but there hasn't been enough time to change sci-fi in the last three years.

    on “Women Who Changed Sci-Fi” ↗
  • Kapura · Dec 12, 2018 · Mentions

    …well) - The Three Body Problem - The Dark Forest - Death's End --- Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (A spaceship's AI becomes confined to a single human body and seeks revenge) - Ancillary Justice - Ancillary Sword - Ancillary Mercy --- Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin (Earth really hates humans, but some people have the power to control the earthquakes) - The Fifth Season - The Obelisk Gate - The Stone Sky

    on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗
  • skorgu · Dec 23, 2015 · Mentions

    I was on a sf kick this year apparently. Full list (why can't amazon show me the read dates of my kindle books?!): - Ancillary Sword - The Magician's Land - The Three Body Problem (incomplete) - Libriomancer, Codex Born, Unbound - Thank You, Jeeves - Omon Ra (incomplete) - Stations of the Tide - 1Q84 (staggeringly incomplete)…

    on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗
  • e12e · Feb 18, 2024 · Mentions

    …was: https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/ The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books) The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books) Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK) Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books) The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)

    on “Science fiction authors were excluded from awards for fear of offending China” ↗
  • arjie · Apr 17, 2026 · Mentions

    …good, what can you put in front of us? In a sense, I use platforms for their communities selection effects. Reddit's /r/books has a top scroller with book titles on it. Right now are Mieville's Kraken, Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, The Names by Knapp, and Lolita by Nabokov, and so on. Of the times I've picked from the top scroller I've been pleased. The guys running that site are good taste makers for me even if they're…

    on “Everything we like is a psyop” ↗

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