Les chroniques du Radch, Tome 1 : La justice de l'ancillaire

J’ai eu du mal à me mettre dedans, les règles grammaticales sur le genre étant non seulement confusante mais désagréable (j’ai eu l’occasion de lire un livre où tout était genré au féminin « elle pleut », « la bébé », mais ce n’est pas pareil).
Après quelques chapitres (et ayant appris que la version originale était aussi « perturbante » et que ce n’était pas une aberration de traduction), j’ai enfin profité du livre.
Une histoire complexe et très bien ficelée, originale, que j’ai trouvé très rafraîchissante.

The idea of a split awareness, of “self” being distributed among multiple bodies drew me in, but I think I enjoyed the concept more than the story itself. I found the present-day story in the first half slow going. I don’t know how necessary the dual timeline was. The Radch (Radchaai?) culture was interesting, with its rituals, religion, tea and inter-house politics. That said, many of the cultural details seemed there more as unrelated background, and the story could have played out in a similar way in a very different setting.

The characters and there decisions didn’t always make sense to me, which maybe kept me from being fully engaged. Overall, I’m glad I read this, but I’m not in a rush to pick up the sequel.

There's a lot of death and destruction happening throughout the book and the Radch is quite an evil Empire. Nevertheless, the two main characters grew on me quickly. Great world-building but done in a restrained manner. The story itself is quite the wild ride. It also stands on its own, despite being the first book in a trilogy.

Leckie's novel explores so many different worlds and how the worlds see each other that it provides interesting insights into what makes something alien. The transhumanist space ship AI as a first-person character also asks questions about what it means to be alive. One of the central themes of a society with a genderless pronoun also forces the reader to consider if gender matters in this future world, while also examining why certain characters are expected to have a specified gender.

A fascinating exploration of colonialism, gender, and the question of human agency told through a remarkably human, arguably nonhuman protagonist. A must-read for anyone who enjoys outside-the-box thinking and sci-fi worldbuilding.

An incredibly good read with a novel, good viewpoint based upon a ship AI with many "ancillary" bodies.

I look forward to reading the next book in the series

As I was reading this book there were often times I loved it, but also a lot of times I just felt confused and a bit lost, and, whilst it was more enjoyment towards the end, I am not ready to jump on the next book on the series straight away. 3* is harsh, but I need to give it another read before I could recommend it. There was a lot of good fresh concepts which might just take a bit of getting used to.

I picked this book after it won the Hugo. I was expecting good things, considering that it won over Wheel of Time, but wasn't expecting it to be this good.

This book would have been notable if only it were for the little things:

- The protagonist of the book is a spaceship.
- Everyone's a she (in speaking)
- War crimes, phiolosophy
- Omniscient AI's POV


But it really raises the stakes by actually pulling it off. The story never breaks, the plot is excellent, the characters sympathetic, and the world-building is amongst the best.

Will be re-reading, for sure.

If you're a SciFi fan, or love the foundation, do try this.

Ok, so doing my annual rounds of the Hugo/Nebula nominees who look interesting and I haven't read yet. This was, average. Don't get me wrong, it was well written and easy to read there was just no spark. I didn't find the central premise all that exciting and the gender pronoun thing just got annoying after a while. Decent if not spectacular.