As part of a recent push to read some new and fresh science fiction, this book was recommended on a website listing good new sci-fi. It is a debut novel by the author, and it turned out to be a really well-written book that had me reading through it (almost) non-stop.
Told from the point of view of a spaceship AI (which turns out to be weird in a different way than you might expect) the book describes a very lively and interesting universe. The story manages to work on several different scales – the operations and politics of local occupying governments, the ships and troops handling annexations, and even the lonely mission of a single person.
There are several unique points about this book – some work well and others seemed a little too confusing for me to consider them effective. For one example, in the major society that is depicted here there is no overt gendering (with language or otherwise) so everyone is called a “she”, which is (intentionally) confusing at first. As other societies are introduced you kind of figure this out, but I’m still not sure what the point was other than to throw the reader off initially.
But another unique point that worked really well was the idea of the “ancillaries” in the title – the AI of the ships is not only limited to the ship itself but also is spread through once human entities that are implanted with technology allowing the ship’s AI to control their bodies and sense the world through them. This makes for a real challenge for the writer – to describe simultaneous events seen from many different perspectives of what is actually the same consciousness. If you can divide your consciousness, is it possible for them to be separated? What happens then? Can you disagree with other parts of yourself? This is introduced slowly at first and the reader gradually is able to get used to it – it really is a unique and interesting way to tell a story. Later the book explores this idea in much more detail, so the mild learning curve was much appreciated.
So I really liked this one, and there are two more in the series. After a while I’m definitely coming back to continue the story and see how it goes. This was a very impressive book for a first time author!
Next is Jubilee, by Toni Tipton-Martin.
