Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)

Good. In places very good, but in others, sort of weak (especially the places with plot).

By far the best thing in this book is the concept of the big ship AIs working through their ancillaries. I thought that was presented very well, and certainly made the first part of the book. The overall story left me a little flat, though, mostly because Breq's motivations were not particularly clear (and maybe I missed something in the middle) I am not sure how the High Lord was able to work against herself without the rest of her catching on, and Leckie made it difficult to tell sometimes which version of her was doing which thing.

I appreciate that Leckie was trying to say something about gender and its role in our society, but I think it fell flat. The defaulting to "she" is a nice balance against the preponderances of "he"s in print, but didn't make things neutral for me—it made everyone female unless it became apparent that they weren't. And Breq's confusion over gender, in areas where it was important, felt forced to me. I can't believe that the visual cues weren't enough for her. The constant comments that she couldn't distinguish the genders and consistently guessed wrong came across as a conceit or vanity on her part—she can't be bothered to make the distinction.

A final blow was how near the end of the book, Breq needs rescuing by Seivarden (who is "male"), ultimately turning her into a damsel in distress, which I though weakened the character and what I thought Leckie was trying to do with gender.