Ancillary Sword discussion thread!

[kaberett]

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 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...

Comments

[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.