Name: Ancillary Sword
ISBN: 9781410477149

Ancillary Sword

Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she has only a single body and serves the emperor. With a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to go to the only place in the galaxy she would agree to go: to Athoek Station to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew - a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.

What Hacker News says

mattmanserFeb 2021

Ann Leckie has written a great sci-fi series, Ancillary Justice/Ancillary Sword/Ancillary Mercy, where the main character assumes everyone is a she and keeps referring to them as that all the way through (though it becomes fairly obvious to the reader which are hes and shes).

I found it actually fairly annoying at first, but quickly got over it because it is related to the plot. Same for Sanderson, I've read all his books and am not even sure now which one you're talking about!

Sometimes we need a nudge to notice the unconscious bias around us, and it's often uncomfortable.

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specialistJan 2021

For space opera stuff, I really liked Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword https://annleckie.com/novel/ancillary-justice/ series and Corey's The Expanse stuff (I read the books after watching the series).

For transhuman stuff, Brin's Kiln People, Morgan's Altered Carbon, and Scalzi's Old Man's War were fun.

Along the lines of epics like Asimov's Foundation and Banks' Culture, nothing springs to mind. Sadness. That's probably my favorite genre.

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x1798DEJan 2016

I feel like it's a bit premature to say Anne Leckie has changed sci-fi. I liked Ancillary Sword, too, but there hasn't been enough time to change sci-fi in the last three years.

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arjieApr 2026

Well, one thing I've discovered with the advent of AI music is that there are lots of things I like that are not particularly notable. I can listen to the 100th "1996 ESCAPE FROM DATA CITY + Unreal Tournament Mix" and enjoy it. I can't say that I've "discovered" an artist who then went on to become big. Back in the day, on amie.st there were quite a lot of cheap singles that I really enjoyed too but I can't find those artists again.

So, for people like me, the things we will listen to are the things you can get in front of us. I suspect there are a lot of others like me. The threshold for good is not very high for us so it's a matter of distribution. Of the numerous things we will deem good, what can you put in front of us? In a sense, I use platforms for their communities selection effects.

Reddit's /r/books has a top scroller with book titles on it. Right now are Mieville's Kraken, Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, The Names by Knapp, and Lolita by Nabokov, and so on. Of the times I've picked from the top scroller I've been pleased. The guys running that site are good taste makers for me even if they're paid for it.

If Chaotic Good breaks that pattern and pays them to put things I don't like, I will stop using the platform for selection. Such is life and I'm fine with it. But if they cross my threshold of good, I don't mind so much that in the frothing foam of artists some are elevated by their agents to slightly greater heights than others. The psyop is perfectly okay.

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e12eFeb 2024

While not my favorite book, I think it's certainly Hugo quality. What would you pick for 2015? Besides, winning would seem fair, nominations possibly not?

The list was:

https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/

The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)

Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)

The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)

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KapuraDec 2018

This year was a year in which, along with everything else, I read a number of standout scifi trilogies:

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Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (African girl goes to space, becomes a unifying force in the galaxy)