Ancillary Justice

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.

Really enjoyed this book. In some ways it's a classic space opera but there's enough twists on the formula that it feels super fresh. Fascinating explorations of identity, language, and class. The writing was fun and engaging, I ate this book up.

This is a fun space opera that has all the fun space opera things: giant interstellar empires; worldbuilding on various interstellar cultures, and how they interact with each other, and how they do gender; exploration of how cognition and identity works in entities that are not (or not entirely) human; grand plots and conspiracies.

The overall plot is perhaps a bit simple, and some of the characters lean perhaps too much into one-dimensional archetypes, but it does not matter that much against the lively worldbuilding, and how it ties into the whole story.

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.

2021-07-05: 2nd reading: absolutely loved this book. Maybe because I've already read the series and that made it far less confusing this time, or I was just in the right mood this time. For whatever reason, really enjoyed this book.



2018-08-13: Original reading: Needlessly confusing language about ships and titles, so much so that I almost stopped reading. But then I missed the story so picked it up again via audiobook, and loved it overall. Still think I don't totally understand what a "justice", "mercey" is. More in the confusion and some guesses here: www.goodreads.com/questions/1376602-i-m-half-way-through-the-book-thought-i/answers/743517-my-understanding-of

Inutilmente complicato e onestamente non mi ha entusiasmato. Forse non l'ho capito io o forse sono troppo legato all'hard scifi classica.