What if the Borg were the good guys? At times the Radchaai seem rather Borg-like, but they can also be very compassionate and civilized.

From that moment I was twenty different people, with twenty different sets of observations and memories, and I can only remember what happened by piecing those separate experiences together.

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In particular this story follows Breq. She is almost Radchaai, but not quite. You have to be human to be Radchaai. She’s been looking for something for twenty years. She almost has it, but what will she do when she has it? And why is she always singing?

Why is this on our bookshelf?

There are spaceships and cyborgs and artificial intelligence and highly advanced weapons.

But don’t let the cover fool you. Several small, fighter-type craft are flying over a large spaceship. A planet is in the background. There are several large spacecraft and space stations in this book. There are several different planets. But small craft barely even warrant a mention.

As someone in the aviation industry, I felt the need to warn people.

Ancillary Justice was nominated for the 2013 Philip K Dick award.

Rating (4 stars)

An excellently woven storyline, with plenty of action mixed in. The characters are all fairly well developed, though Breq can seem emotionless at times (I assume that’s because she’s cyborg, so it fits).

For me, the one downside is the writing format–  chapters alternate between past and present: Breq on her quest vs the reason she has a quest. At times it felt like watching Memento for the first time– the information is confusing, in the wrong order, and too late to be useful. It’s about halfway through the book before we know what started things in motion.

On the other hand, I was hooked in from page two, and wanting to know more of Breq’s back story had me racing home from work everyday to read. But only for a few days. A book like this wasn’t going to sit on the shelf until I’d finished it.