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| Trade paperback, 356 pages Published 2014 Acquired December 2016 Read September 2017 |
Ancillary Justice was a book with a lot of a narrative drive: you kept reading because you both wanted to know how Breq had ended up in her situation, and because you wanted to know how she would carry out her vengeance. Each of the parallel plotlines had a great hook and a lot of energy.
Ancillary Sword is weirdly energy-less. Given her own ship and sent off on a mission, Breq seems to pretty much have nothing to do beyond stick her nose into various local affairs at the planet where she and her ship (Mercy of Kalr) end up. I never really got what her purpose was. Supposedly she's helping to defend the Radch, but there are no clear stakes to Breq's mission in this book-- contrast that with the enormous stakes in Ancillary Justice. Furthermore, what she does do quickly becomes obnoxious, as Breq is smarter and more moral than everyone else in the novel, accomplishing all of her goals with an ease that soon becomes dull. Is there no one she can't outwit? Apparently. Is everyone in the Radch less principled than her? It sure seems so, deflating all tension. How did she get so good? Why make your main character a former spaceship if it has no bearing on the story?
I like Breq, I like the setting (it's very complicated, politically and culturally), I like many of the side characters, such as Seivarden (though she doesn't do much in this volume) and Kalr Five (who is awesome). But Ancillary Sword is not the best story that could have been told with them, unfortunately, and huge let-down compared to the first book.
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