{"id":2922,"date":"2014-02-03T13:27:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T20:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2014-02-03T13:28:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T20:28:59","slug":"book-review-ancillary-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=2922","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Ancillary Justice<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I pretty much stopped reading books, when I abruptly fell down the rabbit-hole of depression. But I’m doing better now—not only reading again, but also writing—and I wanted to tell everyone about one of the most exciting sci-fi books I’ve had the pleasure to read recently.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

Ancillary Justice<\/em> has a ship’s AI as its narrator. Although actually it’s a bit more complicated than that, because the AI is housed in a human body—a tribute exacted by a conquering interstellar empire from one of its colonized peoples—and there’s strong hints that some of that person’s erased mind still influences the AI. It’s a fantastically nuanced portrayal, at once believably alien and heartbreakingly human. There’s also plenty of action and space-intrigue and murder and skulduggery, which makes the book fun<\/em>, but it’s the quiet moments when the AI struggles to parse human gender cues, or carries on a subtly catty conversation with a space station, that make it special<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I liked Ancillary Justice<\/em> so much that I started following the author’s blog, and it’s been really delightful. Here’s Ann Leckie on fanfiction<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It may seem premature. Presumptuous, perhaps. But I have reason to consider now an appropriate time to post my official feelings about fanfic of my writing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve given this a lot of consideration. I know it\u2019s a topic that can sometimes be a bit contentious, and so I spent some time writing and editing my statement very carefully so that it fully conveyed my thoughts on the matter. Here it is. Please read it over carefully:<\/p>\n

Ann\u2019s Fanfic Policy<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

You kids have fun!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also felt strongly enough, when I read on her blog<\/a> that some reviewers were criticizing Ancillary Justice<\/em> for being “not all that significant,” to weigh in myself. Ancillary Justice<\/em> is a book that exists in conversation with other books. It has a lineage. Specifically it belongs to a tradition of science-fiction books written by women that tackle the subject of gender by disembodying it. What does gender mean for a spaceship? What does mean for a culture where bodies themselves change regularly? Behind Ancillary Justice<\/em> there’s The Left Hand of Darkness<\/em> and The Ship Who Sang<\/em> and other books too—and this doesn’t mean that Ancillary Justice<\/em> is “insignificant,” just because it tackles a subject that has been addressed before. That’s like saying that every book where a young man grapples with a complicated relationship to his father is insignificant, it’s already been done.<\/p>\n

Oh, but nobody would<\/em> say that, would they? Because men and their daddy issues or their coming-of-ages or their midlife crises, those are timeless and ever-fresh. It’s only when women start to talk about gender that suddenly we’re “insignificant” when we write a book that’s knowledgeable about, that speaks to, the ones our literary foremothers wrote. So I wanted to say: Ancillary Justice<\/em> is a very good book. And it’s a significant<\/strong> one as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I pretty much stopped reading books, when I abruptly fell down the rabbit-hole of depression. But I’m doing better now—not only reading again, but also writing—and I wanted to tell everyone about one of the most exciting sci-fi books I’ve had the pleasure to read recently. Ancillary Justice has a ship’s AI as its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2927,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/2927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}