Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie (2014-10-07)

A disappointing, rambling sequel to Ancillary Justice. Couldn't bring myself to finish it, as far too much of the book was spent on twiddly details that seemed to be doing nothing to advance the plot.

Leckie is always a talented composer, but while "Ancillary Justice" was mind-blowing space opera, this feels like space chamber music: smaller, subdued, and more intimate. It reads as an intermediate step, before something big and urgent happens again. I'd love to meet these characters again, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the "Imperial Radch" cycle.

I found the whole gender pronoun thing confusing and unneeded. The story would have been much better just told straight. Nonetheless it was a good story. I haven't read the first of the trilogy but I liked this one well enough to read the other one eventually, especially since it was an award winner.

If anything, this is a better book than Ancillary Justice, which I enjoyed tremendously. It surely helps a lot to have read the first book, though Ancillary Sword is not just the middle of one long story broken into thirds, but a novel in its own right with a beginning, middle and end.The plot involves Breq navigating the politics of an isolated star system in the course of attempting to protect both it and her own autonomy from the brewing civil war in the Empire of the Radch. This requires her to cope with elite factionalism and class resentments both planetside and aboard the system's main space station. Breq now has command of a small warship, so there's a lot of fun seeing the extent to which that does and doesn't help restore all that she has missed about life since being reduced from a facet of a distributed AI down to an isolated, singular consciousness (like the rest of us).

The journey is great. The destination has the feel of "It's time for a climax now and this kind is usually pretty exciting" about it, and that keeps the book from earning the fifth star. But it's very hard for adventure fiction to stick the landing. I remain delighted to have read this book and its predecessor, and I'll grab the conclusion, Ancillary Mercy, the instant it's available.

Unfortunately I read this book, Ancillary Sword, before I read Book 1 in the series, Ancillary Justice. I found it a hard read, interesting enough for Four Stars, but concepts too new for me to be comfortable. Then I read Ancillary Justice and easily understood it. Reread Sword and enjoyed it thoroughly.

This felt like a novella that hardly moved the plot forward at all. It ignored the larger arc altogether that it had set up in book one, and instead told a little political side story. Big disappointment after the brilliant book one.

Like Ancillary Justice, this book is well worth reading, and I'm looking forward to her next book. Everything that made me like AJ, is still represented, but perhaps a bit less of it. I didn't quite apprechiate just as much as AJ, anyway. That being said, it is still a very good book, the suspense is building, and my main problem with it may be that it ended too soon.

Save yourself time and get some tea. Contemplate the spoon. Contemplate the cup. Have a sip. Contemplate the cup. There - Ancillary Sword in a nutshell. Read rest of the reviews for more comprehensive description. Would you guess what awaits you in the grand finale, the third volume? Yes, more tea! Sorry Ms. Leckie, I am a coffee type of person.

Still, I loved the first volume!

While there is perhaps too much exposition in the first chapters (especially after just having finished Ancillary Justice), this is still a solid book with the interesting cultural ideas examined in the first book further expanded. I liked it very much.

Bio engendered humans created by a 3000 year-old multi personality to annex and maintain space worlds. The gender is that of she, her, mother, daughter but only in language. An enjoyable twist away from using the male language to connote a general person or even the person herself.

To be clear: I really, really, really liked ANCILLARY SWORD. But I absolutely adored ANCILLARY JUSTICE. And to be fair, a lot of the things that I loved about JUSTICE could not (and should not) have been replicated in SWORD. The non-linear storytelling, the general angst of the time-displaced character, and the bizarrely omniscient narrative style of the ship character (now called Breq) would have felt overdone in this sequel. Unfortunately, this means that while the continuing plot arch and all of the newly introduced characters are well done, the recurring characters felt a little flatter, and Breq felt a little less intense.

On the plus side, the hidden civil war events that further the plot in SWORD are just as dramatic in this sequel, with hints of more excitement to come in the form of conflict with a mysterious alien race. The world building was also just as expansive, touching on topics not covered in the first book. If you liked JUSTICE, SWORD will not disappoint.

I eagerly await the conclusion to this incredible tale.

This is a smart series, and admittedly, it took a while for it to really take hold of me. Eventually I added audible narration to my Kindle book, and that allowed the story to start to take root. I like listening to books in bed now, and getting a bedtime story read to me! In any case, the story develops within a fascinating and complex intergalactic social system and is rife with strong anti-colonialist themes.

Due to it's resemblance to old school sci fi, I expected it to remain fairly cool, aloof and detached from it's characters. As a result, I was pleasantly surprised at how touching Breq's story becomes by the end. This is by no means a love story, but it is certainly a story about love and the way this helps people develop their humanity. This aspect of the story, ensconced as it is within such an epic and compelling saga, was a delight to read. And dear god, descriptions of the Presgar (an alien race) Translator Dlique provided some brilliant and much needed comedic relief in a story that gets pretty intense at times. Finally, Breq is totally my new superhero.

Excellent character driven space opera. I found that the pacing lagged a bit compared to the first book in the series. It seems to me though, that this installment is setting up a third book, which I eagerly await.

A decent sequel, but borrowing a phrase from a reviewer on goodreads, it's doesn't feel like you're reading a book about soldiers, "girl's boarding school" describes it perfectly. That doesn't mean it's a bad book though.

I received the first installment of the Imperial Radch trilogy (Ancillary Justice) as a present. It had been some time since I had read science fiction and this was a wonderful return to the genre. Once started it was very difficult to put it down and I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I quickly ordered the second book, Ancillary Sword, and started reading it before it had warmed up from being out in a cold mailbox. This book is very entertaining but it is not as difficult to put down as Ancillary Justice was. It certainly advances the story and I am waiting somewhat impatiently for the third installment. I think it would be difficult to read this book without first having read Ancillary Justice, but I'm sure it could be done with some loss of understanding. No matter which one you read, the gender identification of the characters may drive you just a bit spare.

Some of the same interesting characters, some new ones, but lacking in the intensity and plot-driven suspense of the first book. The story meanders with limited up or down and I was left wanting something more.

I read the translation of the first book and could not wait until the second book is translated. I was not disappointed, even if it is a bit different (with significant detective-story features). I must say I did not care about the plot too much, I simply enjoyed a classical sci-fi.

The sequel did not quite live up to the expectations after the first book. Much of the story seemed a bit irrelevant, and missing the point, if there was one.
A bit patchy in tempo, skipping parts, leaving the reader with a feeling that you missed a page or so.

I have to express my disappointment with this book. The first in the series, Ancillary Justice, I gave a five-star review. It was fresh, well-written and engaging. I tore through it in a day and a half. When I saw there was a second book in the series, I had to have it, of course. Sadly, I only made it about 30% in to the book before I gave up. The narrator is ridiculously one-dimensional, and the author doesn't bother to show us this any more, but lazily tells us. I started to keep track of how many times it would say "angry" on a page as kind of a joke.

AM continues the story fluidly and with no real gap in time from the end of AJ. It informs us more about the universe in which Leckie's books take place, and keeps us hooked and wanting the third book NOW. :)

Ann Leckie continues the saga begun in Ancillary Justice, taking us deeper into the character of Breq. While this book does not have the sheer creative firepower of its predecessor, it certainly delivered an engaging story that focuses on characters and the fascinating society of the Radch. Even minor players are well defined, and the author goes out of her way to show the moral and political consequences of actions. I'm looking forward to the third book of the trilogy.