A review of Ancillary Justice

It's impossible to read Ancillary Justice without thinking of Iain M Banks (unless you're one of those unhappy people who's never read an Iain M Banks book) and that's a lot for a debut author to live up to. But Ann Leckie's first novel does the job admirably. As in Banks' Culture novels, we're far into the future, far out into the universe and totally immersed in a number of alien cultures, with the main one being the Radch, a warmongering expansionist race of humanoids busily gobbling up various corners of the galaxy.

Leading us through this new world with minimal exposition and maximum impact is Breq, the last remnant of what was once the hive AI mind of a warship, the 'Justice of Toren' and is now an individual ancillary. Plural and confused identities are the order of the day, as Radch ships take human bodies from their conquests to use as conduits for aspects of connected ship minds and exist as a many-numbered "I". Add in the facts that the Radch language doesn't distinguish between gender and refers to everyone as a "she" and the story is told from Breq's point of view, and you end up with multiple strands dealing with the amorphous nature of identity and how it is constructed not just by the characters but by the societies and people they encounter too.

All of this is framed within two thriller tales, Breq's past as 'Justice of Toren', where we know something terrible is going to happen, and Breq's present quest to obtain a mysterious something and go on to some mysterious, but definitely very dangerous, objective. These strands are deftly woven together, revealing not just their own stories but shedding light on each other as well, while Breq struggles to deal with what she once was and what she is now.

Rattling along at a great pace, the novel never feels like it's explaining its own world, only that you're discovering it, the ultimate aim of any world-building first book. But while you get to know the Radch and their universe well, there are still a wealth of unanswered questions you're more than willing to have revealed in any number of sequels. 

This feels like the first visit to a world with a vast range of possibilities and a hundred layers of meaning all carried off by Leckie in a story that's exciting and fun, with fascinating, tightly-drawn characters and compelling vistas. I expect to have the sequel pre-ordered as soon as it becomes available.