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brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie. The third and final book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. The plot remains on Athoek Station, a relative backwater that now sees itself caught in the midst of a civil war. The inhabitants choose sides, jockey for position, but mostly just try to live their normal lives. The politics of control, of political representation, and of protesting are central to the book, including one heart-stopping moment that calls back to the spoilery heart of Ancillary Justice, replayed now with citizens of the empire instead of half-conquered colonials. I was reminded of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, but unfortunately human history is such that there are plenty of other massacres Leckie might have been referencing. Or perhaps she had no specific incident at all in mind; the rules of colonialism and imperialism mean there are only so many ways disagreement can play out.
There is a continued focus on the question of identity and what makes a person a person. Several characters are introduced or receive bigger roles who question the boundaries of personhood: AIs like Breq once was but who want to claim citizenship while still existing as ships; an AI that runs a station and is struggling against her overly controlling programming; an AI from a different culture; a human raised by aliens who has extremely different worldviews, concepts of selfhood, and even bodily functions; a human whose mind was temporarily reprogrammed and is struggling to make a coherent personality out of two entirely different sets of memories. All of them, in one way or another, build relationships, make choices, and eventually claim their rights.
Ancillary Mercy finds a balance between the two previous books. Whereas Ancillary Justice was a grand, galaxy-spanning novel and Ancillary Sword told a small, personal story, this one is in the middle: Breq wins an important battle and changes the lives of those around her, but it is (for now, at least) a very local development, influencing relatively few people.
Which is not to say this book is all serious analysis of colonialism, because there is some extremely delicious tropey goodness here: a character thinks she's been left behind in the midst of battle and has resigned herself to death when her friends arrive at the last minute to rescue her because OF COURSE they would never abandon her! Platonic bedsharing and cuddling! A character who's convinced she's unloveable has multiple others forcibly telling her 'no, you dummy, we love you SO MUCH'! It's excellent stuff, y'all.
I've loved this trilogy so much. It's thoughtful and thrilling and sad and uplifting and full of engaging characters and repressed emotions and complex worldbuilding. My only complaint is that Ann Leckie hasn't already written a hundred more books for me to dive into immediately.
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd. A nonfiction book on, well, you've got it right there in the subtitle. Though despite its claim, the major focus is the 1600s to late 1900s, which: fair enough. There's many fewer available records before that, and Ackroyd probably assumed most people are already familiar with the history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since I tend to find recent history boring (I AM SO TIRED OF HOLLYWOOD'S MULTITUDE OF WWII MOVIES) I was personally more than all right with this decision.
It's a short book to cover two thousand years, or even only four hundred. Which unfortunately results in Queer City reading like a trivia book, a long list of short paragraphs about "here's a king who was rumored to have sex with men; here's two women who were buried together; here's an AMAB person who was arrested for wearing dresses", with little analysis or narrative threads connecting one incident to another. Ackroyd also relies heavily on judicial records, which again: fair enough. I'm not sure there's a better way to access the history of the lower classes, particularly if you want the sort of information that will give you exact street addresses to map onto modern London. But it does mean that this history comes off like a endless recitation of rape, pediophilia, and prostitution. The fact that this seems to provide supporting evidence for the worst sort of homophobia isn't really Ackroyd's fault, but it is depressing.
I would have liked more focus on how queerness was conceived of by the people of the various time periods, though I realize that's probably the hardest thing to get at in all of history. Particularly in the records of a trial, you're just not going to get someone asking the accused, 'please explain your philosophy of gender in clear terms'. Alas. I'll have to keep searching for the possibly-impossibly book that does delve into that mystery.
Overall it's not a bad book, but it could have been so much better.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. More in my current sci-fi spree! This one is also coming off a rec from a friend, but I haven't read enough yet to see what I think of it.
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie. The third and final book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. The plot remains on Athoek Station, a relative backwater that now sees itself caught in the midst of a civil war. The inhabitants choose sides, jockey for position, but mostly just try to live their normal lives. The politics of control, of political representation, and of protesting are central to the book, including one heart-stopping moment that calls back to the spoilery heart of Ancillary Justice, replayed now with citizens of the empire instead of half-conquered colonials. I was reminded of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, but unfortunately human history is such that there are plenty of other massacres Leckie might have been referencing. Or perhaps she had no specific incident at all in mind; the rules of colonialism and imperialism mean there are only so many ways disagreement can play out.
There is a continued focus on the question of identity and what makes a person a person. Several characters are introduced or receive bigger roles who question the boundaries of personhood: AIs like Breq once was but who want to claim citizenship while still existing as ships; an AI that runs a station and is struggling against her overly controlling programming; an AI from a different culture; a human raised by aliens who has extremely different worldviews, concepts of selfhood, and even bodily functions; a human whose mind was temporarily reprogrammed and is struggling to make a coherent personality out of two entirely different sets of memories. All of them, in one way or another, build relationships, make choices, and eventually claim their rights.
Ancillary Mercy finds a balance between the two previous books. Whereas Ancillary Justice was a grand, galaxy-spanning novel and Ancillary Sword told a small, personal story, this one is in the middle: Breq wins an important battle and changes the lives of those around her, but it is (for now, at least) a very local development, influencing relatively few people.
Which is not to say this book is all serious analysis of colonialism, because there is some extremely delicious tropey goodness here: a character thinks she's been left behind in the midst of battle and has resigned herself to death when her friends arrive at the last minute to rescue her because OF COURSE they would never abandon her! Platonic bedsharing and cuddling! A character who's convinced she's unloveable has multiple others forcibly telling her 'no, you dummy, we love you SO MUCH'! It's excellent stuff, y'all.
I've loved this trilogy so much. It's thoughtful and thrilling and sad and uplifting and full of engaging characters and repressed emotions and complex worldbuilding. My only complaint is that Ann Leckie hasn't already written a hundred more books for me to dive into immediately.
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd. A nonfiction book on, well, you've got it right there in the subtitle. Though despite its claim, the major focus is the 1600s to late 1900s, which: fair enough. There's many fewer available records before that, and Ackroyd probably assumed most people are already familiar with the history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since I tend to find recent history boring (I AM SO TIRED OF HOLLYWOOD'S MULTITUDE OF WWII MOVIES) I was personally more than all right with this decision.
It's a short book to cover two thousand years, or even only four hundred. Which unfortunately results in Queer City reading like a trivia book, a long list of short paragraphs about "here's a king who was rumored to have sex with men; here's two women who were buried together; here's an AMAB person who was arrested for wearing dresses", with little analysis or narrative threads connecting one incident to another. Ackroyd also relies heavily on judicial records, which again: fair enough. I'm not sure there's a better way to access the history of the lower classes, particularly if you want the sort of information that will give you exact street addresses to map onto modern London. But it does mean that this history comes off like a endless recitation of rape, pediophilia, and prostitution. The fact that this seems to provide supporting evidence for the worst sort of homophobia isn't really Ackroyd's fault, but it is depressing.
I would have liked more focus on how queerness was conceived of by the people of the various time periods, though I realize that's probably the hardest thing to get at in all of history. Particularly in the records of a trial, you're just not going to get someone asking the accused, 'please explain your philosophy of gender in clear terms'. Alas. I'll have to keep searching for the possibly-impossibly book that does delve into that mystery.
Overall it's not a bad book, but it could have been so much better.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
What are you currently reading?
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. More in my current sci-fi spree! This one is also coming off a rec from a friend, but I haven't read enough yet to see what I think of it.
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