It’s been ten days since the climactic finale of Ancillary Justice, and Breq is just finishing recovering from those events.
“To Fleet Captain Breq! Who doesn’t know where her ass is!”
She is promoted to Fleet Captain, given her own ship, and sent to maintain the safety of the Athoek system. But first, she might have to protect the system from itself.
Why is this on our bookshelf?
Ancillary Justice didn’t just win awards, it dominated. To name only a few, it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke award and others. When it didn’t win the award, it was picked up a nomination, including one for the Philip K Dick award.
After that, you almost have to pick up the sequel.
Ancillary Sword was nominated for the Nebula Award.
Rating (5 stars)
Ancillary Sword is even better than Ancillary Justice.
Unlike the first book, which had numerous flashbacks, this story is much more linear, which I prefer. Breq’s character development continues where it left off at the end of the first book, and is even more noticeable with the story focused entirely on her.
While the action scenes are a bit limited, it never felt like the plot was dragging along to get there.
Many of the story threads in Ancillary Justice are continued or concluded in Ancillary Sword, and new ones are introduced. The door is definitely open for more sequels, but I didn’t feel like it ended on a cliffhangar.
After such an amazing first book, some may have been nervous about the sequel living up to it, but I found this to be an excellent continuation of Breq’s story.
Read this book:
With a cup of tea.
Don't Read this book:
If you don’t have an acceptable set of dishes.
Once you're done, do this:
Say, in verse, how God is like a duck.
