Matthew's Journal

I really loved Ancillary Justice, the first of the Imperial Radch trilogy, and voted for it for the Hugo award; I was rather less taken with Ancillary Sword.

I got Ancillary Mercy for Christmas, and have now read it. And it's really, really good. It has plenty of the politics you expect from Leckie, including a chunk of stuff about the relationship between humans and AIs (which reminded me again of Banks). But it also has a narrative that picks you up and sweeps you along, with some neat twists and turns and some well-drawn characters. I also liked that a lot of what has come before in the trilogy matters, too - not in the sense that you have to remember every detail to understand the plot, but that you keep seeing things that refer back to previous events in a way that feels right.

The ending is solid, too - it feels like a satisfactory ending to the trilogy (and the plot of this book), without being too trite nor trying too hard to pick up every loose end. I wouldn't be surprised to see more in this universe at some point in the future