kaberett: A painting of a ship, taken from the cover of Ann Leckie's novel Ancillary Justice. (ancillary justice)
[personal profile] kaberett posting in [community profile] flower_of_justice
Because, yep, it's out tomorrow. :-) There will be spoilers in comments.

And before it gets to us... thoughts on the first three chapters (if you've read 'em)?

ALSO it is probably worth noticing - in case any of you don't subscribe to [syndicated profile] annleckie_feed - that Ann Leckie is doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything, with some questions (left in comments at her blog) already answered in the body of the post! I am going to try not to hit refresh endlessly...

Date: 2014-10-06 09:42 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28
I loved getting a name for One Amaat One - Nysene Ptem - and the pointed naming-in-daily-prayers of both Nysene and Awn.

The baby lieutenant thread made me nearly cry - I think it's flagged pretty strongly what's going on and I was sharing with Breq the trepidation and wishing-I-was-wrong. What happens next (I will find out tomorrow)

Date: 2014-10-21 12:45 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
I'm having a leisurely reread of Justice and Sword and I've noticed that while Justice throws a lot of hints about Breq and religion - especially that icon that looks like her - Sword never really picks them up. Left for Mercy, or forgotten about?

Date: 2014-10-21 03:01 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
That's a fair point. I think we're looking at two different aspects of religiousity: in Sword it's religion as everyday, and I'm not so sure Breq isn't just going through the motions while using religious metaphor to make political points*; whereas in Justice things like the icon seem to hint at what Breq was up to during those lost 19 years between Awn's death and her finding Seivarden.

*Or, alternative interpretation that occurred to me as I was about to press post, Breq is doing them as a memoriam to Awn.

Date: 2015-01-15 12:50 am (UTC)
nenya_kanadka: thin elegant black cartoon cat (Ancillary Justice)
From: [personal profile] nenya_kanadka
(Having just realized this comm was here, and reading through it with a grin on my face--)

I have it from a comment at [personal profile] ann_leckie's DW that the part with the icon that looked like Breq is indeed a reference to what she got up to in the intervening 19 years--specifically to events that take place in the short story "She Commands Me And I Obey" (Part One | Part Two) which were in Strange Horizons online in November.

(Which you probably have already seen, but just in case!)
Edited Date: 2015-01-15 01:05 am (UTC)

Date: 2015-01-15 08:15 pm (UTC)
nenya_kanadka: cartoon teddy squees with joy (@ squeh!)
From: [personal profile] nenya_kanadka
In the ouroborous of the Internet, I found a link to an interview with Ann Leckie on Tor, which I was linked to by someone on Dreamwidth, in which there was a link back here. :D Am so happy to have found it (even though I'm not commenting much on the older threads) since so far I haven't found many places to discuss it. (Lots of places going "OMG THIS IS AWESOME READ IT NOW" which I totally agree with, but no meta and such. So yay!)

Date: 2015-01-15 01:28 am (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
(Which you probably have already seen, but just in case!)

Keep reading ;)

Date: 2015-01-15 08:12 pm (UTC)
nenya_kanadka: the new day is a great big fish (Discworld great big fish)
From: [personal profile] nenya_kanadka
*koff* About twenty minutes after I posted this last comment, I came across y'all's several thorough posts on the subject... Ahem. Blush. Etc. :D

*waves hello*

Date: 2015-01-15 08:30 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
Waves back ;)

Date: 2014-10-06 05:03 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
it's out tomorrow. :-)

I guess that answers the question of what I'm reading on the train back up North ;) Splending timing!

Date: 2014-10-06 05:08 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28
I got my email notification that the paperback has been posted :-)

I am going to be good and I am not going to stay up until midnight and then read the kindle version the rest of the night.

Date: 2014-10-06 05:49 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28
Of course if I happen to wake / be woken in the night after midnight all bets are off.

Ann Leckie says she'll start replies "at about 7pm Eastern" which I think means "about midnight" too.

Date: 2014-10-06 06:41 pm (UTC)
frith_in_thorns: Hardcover books standing upright (.Books)
From: [personal profile] frith_in_thorns
I actually bought it from Waterstones Oxford on Saturday and I can confirm that IT IS SO INCREDIBLY GOOD.

(I won't say more until it's officially out.)

Date: 2014-10-06 09:39 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28
JEALOUSY :-)

Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS

Date: 2014-10-12 04:10 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
As to why this book is 'Ancillary Justice' - perhaps solely to give the room to call the next book 'Ancillary Mercy'?
Edited (Spelling) Date: 2014-10-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS

Date: 2014-10-21 11:54 am (UTC)
vass: Small turtle with green leaf in its mouth (Default)
From: [personal profile] vass
perhaps solely to give the room to call the next book 'Ancillary Mercy'?

This occurred to me too.

Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS

Date: 2014-10-21 12:15 pm (UTC)
vass: Jon Stewart reading a dictionary (books)
From: [personal profile] vass
but it didn't treat addiction/mental illness like they have easy cures, for which, Thank You.

*nodnod* Also injuries, like Breq's leg.

I was half-waiting/expecting for someone, probably Anaander Mianaai, to use Seivarden's addiction as a vulnerability to exploit. That was my earliest guess at what was happening with Tisarwat and the drugs (she's going to try to give them to her, or when that fails then plant them on her for Breq to find or even forcibly dose Seivarden up, to weaken Breq's base of people she trusts.) I was very glad to be wrong (even while OMG, LECKIE, WAY TO THINK OF SOMETHING MORE HORRIFYING FOR TISARWAT. D: )

Date: 2014-10-12 04:08 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
It was a wonderful read, but it didn't do anything of what I expected, to the point that I now have to completely revise my expectations of what the trilogy is trying to address. I'd assumed that the overall backdrop would be the Anaander Mianaai civil war, with Breq* wrapped up in that, but clearly that isn't the case. Maybe we're looking at something more like Cherryh's Foreigner series (or indeed most of Cherryh's work) where the overall world-changing conflict that would dominate anyone else's story is purely the backdrop against which an intra-household conflict is played out. Or maybe it's all about the Presger, and that gun.

I'd assumed Breq was more sympathetic to their Anaander Mianaai than appears to be true. I think she is more sympathetic to the cause of not-blowing-up-gates, admits-exterminating-an-entire-planet-might-have-been-a-tad-over-the-top, but the moment when she strangles Tisarwat to force AM out, plus some later comments suggest she's successfully distinguishing between cause and leader. I do worry over her judgement, hatred for AM is all very well, but AM is the leadership of the entire Radch, take AM (all of them) out of the situation and the Radch descends into chaos and anarchy as every governor, captain, and citizens like Fosyf and Raughd Denche decides now is the moment for them to take charge. Maybe she recognises that, and that's why her focus revolves around the small, intensely personal goal of protecting Basnaaid Elming, but actions like her strangling of Tisarwat are problematic - Tisarwat as AM's glove-puppet was more predictably manipulatable towards those goals than Tisarwat as an abused, emotional 17yo with 3000 years of political manouevring to draw on.

Which raises the observation that if AM recognised Breq as coming closer to her own experience of living than anyone else, then Tisarwat now comes closer to that for both Breq and for AM. (And I wonder at analogies with the Presger Translator - I would have liked to see a lot more of her)

And drawing on both those points; AM and Breq have created a monster, a damaged 17yo with an incredible ability to manipulate to her own ends. Tisarwat's using her powers for good at the moment, but what happens when she and AM come back into contact? Tisarat knows she was essentially murdered by AM, while AM knows Tisarwat has all of her knowledge, but no loyalty to her. It's not a situation that promises to end well.

WRT Kalr Five, this strikes me as a clear nod to the traditions of naval fiction; the captain's servant is absolutely a traditional role that needs to be filled. I was struck when Breq moved herself ashore that she was actually behaving exactly as a Post Captain would be expected to behave in Napoleonic-era naval fiction, making the overall post/port her focus rather than solely the running of her own ship, and AM making her Fleet Captain gave her the seniority to do that, just as making her Mianaai allowed her to act without people assuming superiority through their particular house. It's clear that AM can't directly control Breq, but that doesn't mean she can't find ways to make Breq's aims congruent with her own - she's had 3000 years to practise....

* And in writing this I find I'm now more comfortable talking about Breq as Breq, rather than Justice of Toren/One Esk Seventeen. I have mixed feelings about this.

Date: 2014-10-12 04:11 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
(Was meant to be a reply to Kaberett, but I seem to have hit the wrong 'reply')

Date: 2014-10-12 09:42 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
A point I meant to, but forgot, to make. It's become very clear that the tendency of the ships to have favourites, to love members of their crew, is, in strictly military terms, a weakness. In our contemporary military tradition, taking the ship's captain hostage will simply result in a stand-off while they rustle up a hostage rescue team, but here Sword of Atagiris immediately folds and surrenders its entire crew (of officers, the ancillaries would be considered disposable) into Breq's hands, even though it has no guarantee they won't be killed later and even though Breq just kneecapped Captain Hetnys to make a point.

There's an odd parallel here, between this situation, and that on Justice of Toren when AM ordered the execution of Lieutenant Awn, yet it's the arrogant, militant Sword of Atagiris that immediately abandons its mission in order to protect its favourite, while the far more thoughtful Justice of Toren carried through even to the extent of killing Awn with its own hands (as that's what Ancillaries are). Of course it then promptly shot AM, apparently to its own surprise, suggesting JoT may have been (unknowingly) as divided against itself as AM is. The difference of course is the instruction in JoT's case came from the Lord of the Radch, but even for Sword of Atagiris the instruction is from a legitimate superior officer in its chain of command.
Edited (Spelling) Date: 2014-10-12 09:45 pm (UTC)

Date: 2014-10-13 12:41 pm (UTC)
davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
From: [personal profile] davidgillon
Just read AL's Redditch AMA and I see she cites Cherryh as a favourite/influence. {Smug}

Date: 2014-10-13 08:17 am (UTC)
axilet: (Default)
From: [personal profile] axilet
Some more observations, in addition to those already made:
Breq appears to be adopting Awn's MO for her own -- go to the slums, earn the people's trust, fix society's problems from the bottom up. I wonder how much of it is her own moral code and how much of it is a desire to atone by doing things that Awn would do. As Justice of Toren she engaged in territorial wars and killings of innocents/citizens without any apparent moral crisis. However both Justice of Toren and Mercy of Kalr do observe and comment on things like classism with disapproval, though it's hard to know whether it's because of favorites that were negatively impacted by the system, AM's meddling, something they came up with on their own or all three. Not clear what Sword of Atagaris thinks of all this but probably not every AI has the same opinions on the subject.

Date: 2014-10-19 08:49 pm (UTC)
syderia: old books (books)
From: [personal profile] syderia
I am not ready to be coherent in the expression of my feelings for Ancillary Sword, and I need to re-read both one after the one, but that ending (starting with the moment just before the coming-out in the shuttle) broke my heart a little bit.
Also, I did not expect to like Mercy of Kalr or her people as much as I did.
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