Ancillary Justice

By: Ann Leckie

Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh

Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's Summary

The only novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards and the first audiobook in Ann Leckie's New York Times best-selling trilogy.

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. 

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance. 

In the Ancillary world:

1. Ancillary Justice
2. Ancillary Sword
3. Ancillary Mercy

For more from Ann Leckie, check out:

Provenance

©2013 Ann Leckie (P)2018 Hachette Audio

I think I need to read this one

difficult to understand and follow in audio format while doing something other than sitting down and doing nothing stop listening. it's probably just me but I might have been better off reading this

Not a great choice for audio

Just one of those scifi books that is so full of alien language and names that it is hard to keep track of the storyline in your ears. No shade to the story or performance, it's probably a lot better on the page.

2013 Must have been a slow year for Sci fi

I bought the book based on the number of awards it won. It's well written, but not exactly ground breaking. Its the evil British empire in space, and elitism is bad. I haven't seen such insightful and poignant social commentary since Star Wars and Harry Potter, respectively. The author does a good job portraying a culture that doesn't distinguish gender by refering to everyone with feminine articles, altgough it can be confusing in a few places. The sci fi setting itself is more of a background than an integral part of the story. The story could have been set in 19th century earth and work just as well in most regards. In fact, some features are more implausible because they as set in an interstellar empire rather than the British Empire, such as the 3,000 year stagnation in technology and culture. Overall not bad, worth a read, but I don't think it matches up favorably with other Nubula award winners.

Has some redeeming value, but is deeply flawed

The major complaint about this book—and the reason why I think it is undeserving of all its accolades (though perhaps still worth a read)—is the poor writing in the first third. Most of it is worldbuilding without context and characters lack interest or motivation. To but it simply, it is boring—novel and unique, sure, but boring nonetheless. Another major detractor is the gender fixation, because of course it is. For those unaware, the female gender is used for most characters in the context of the empire’s culture and becomes a point of confusion outside of it. Simply put, if an advanced culture chooses to ignore biological differences (hormone levels are monitored multiple times in the book, and those clearly differ men to women), there needs to be some sort of reason, which is not given. Second, any AI sufficient to do the things Justice does would not have issue determining gender; it would be a basic function in any rational programming. Finally, and perhaps the most critical problem, is that it is overtly confusing for no real gain—and that’s the problem: it serves no purpose other than flavor. After about third of the way through, the book picks up, however. The main plot of the book (warring factions among an entity which will be unspecified due to spoiler reasons) is interesting and the specific implementation of how multiple person AI works is through provoking. Overall, however, I would not recommend this book.

So happy this was re-recorded with Adjoa Andoh

I love this book and series and the only thing that ever bugged me about the audio books was that the first book was from Recorded Books and had a different narrator. When I saw it was now being offered with narration by the incredible Adjoa Andoh, I didn't hesitate for a second and bought it again so I could have the entire series with the same amazing narrator. I can't wait to listen to it all again!

Confusion, boredom

I give up. After 8 hours of confusing and boring dialogue and monolog, I've had enough. I don't get Why people are raving about this book.

There is a reason this one has won so many accolades!

I'm not one to pay much attention to the "awards" any particular book has won (after all, awards are a dime a dozen), but damned if this one doesn't have a hell of a pedigree of accolades that actually mean something! Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice may not be completely unique, but it does combine a lot of interesting SciFi concepts into a new amalgamation that has something to say. Add in a tangible Jane Austen type influence to the character interactions and you've got something that stands out in modern science fiction. Although the story often comes off as kind of a lone space ronin out for justice, it's more or less framed a bit like a '70s grindhouse film (you did catch my earlier assertion that it's a bit of an amalgamation of stories). Over all I enjoyed the story, but I more so enjoyed the actual mechanics of the writing (it had much more of a mature audience feel to it than the typical modern SciFi fanboy writing that is often touted as great science fiction). As for the narration of Adjoa Andoh. I vacillated back-and-forth on it. At times her silky exotic voice was near pitch perfect for the character, but more often than not, Andoh's narration felt a bit flat to me. Although I may not find myself revisiting Radch Empire many times in the future, I did enjoy the trip while I was there!

This is a very densely packed book

I think because this book is so carefully written and because it has very complicated names it would be better to read it than to listen to it, but my eyes are not good enough for that, sonIm grateful for the masterful job the narrator did. There was a lot of thought provoking situations that make the book more substantial than many other similar sci-fi books. I was a little annoyed that the author felt the need to make a big point about the subject population being gender neutral, though they did have genders, and then proceeded to refer to everyone as her, though some were more masculine and some more feminine. It felt ancillary to the story ):

Worthy of your time.

I have been in a big sci-fi kick as of late and Ancillary Justice did not disappoint. In the last year having read the entire Hyperion Cantos and the first 2 Dune books “space operas” have been where most of my time has been focused. This one did not disappoint at all. There was a lull in the middle of the book but at this point for me that has come to be expected when reading science fiction. You will enjoy this book if you like a story that is well written and imo takes a different tact with many of the main characters being AI and leaving the humans as side players in many ways. It will make you think of life, love, consciousness, and give you the glimpse into a truly universe that Leckie has created. I’m ready for the next one!

Good story, challenging narration

Good story. Loved it! However, I stopped listening and started reading whenever I couldn’t understand the narrator. This occurred too often, due to strange names, unknown vocabulary / concepts, and pronunciation. The narrator’s approach to the 1st person POV named Toren of Justice is excellent and easily understood, but she adopted a variety of extremely twangy, or squeaky, or nasally, or high-pitched voices for many of the secondary and tertiary characters. Hurt my ears. The only character that sounded pleasantly “normal” to me was a ship and her ancillary bodies! Lol. Excellent story.