Ancillary Sword

If it's possible, this book is BETTER than the first one. This is just a great Sci-Fi book, wonderful worldbuilding, that focuses on CHARACTERS rather than every planet and ship and technical science thing in the world. Some of that stuff, while interesting, make big sci-fi for me a bit less compell......more

While I enjoyed Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword (the 2nd book in the Imperial Radch Series, I don’t think it measured up to the complexity and sheer scope of the first book in the series, Ancillary Justice. Leckie’s attention to details in ritual and language continue in this book and maybe was more th......more

Ancillary Justice was a spectacular debut, but its successor is a lot less sure-footed. Leckie's attempt to marry Space Opera with domestic tragedy feels a bit too much like Sense and Sensibility and Spaceships. It's clear by now that Leckie is keen on promoting a particular political sentiment, and......more

Downton Abbey...in SPAAAAAACE! No, it really is. The novel is filled with tea, and fine china. There’s polite meetings in polite society. There’s blushing in abundance at the smallest of social faux pas. There’s tears from the young ‘uns when their jobs are just a bit too overwhelming. There’s snooty......more

One of my sci-fi writer heroes, Gene Wolfe, once said that a story works by “engendering expectations and then satisfying them.” That, then, are the two primary means by which a story can fail. Either it neglects to setup expectations or it sets them up but doesn’t satisfy them. Of the two, the first......more