Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie
We read Ancillary Justice for July’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion Group. The book has an interesting premise that Radch Space Ships have consciousness and as part of them are individual bodies that do work like assisting the officers on and off the ship. Although these bodies can walk around and interact as individual people, they also share the wider consciousness of the ship itself. In the case of this particular ship, Justice of Toren, all of it has been destroyed, but one ancillary, Breq. Breq has only one goal now to get revenge for Justice of Toren no matter what it takes. The story picks up on a remote isolated planet whose cold climate is vividly depicted by the author and gave me flash backs to my time visiting Greenland. The Radch civilization that Justice of Toren was part of did not differentiate by gender and therefor Breq often is confused with how to define those she interacts with and often guess wrong when communicating with them. This adds an interesting perspective to the story and though the ships are given emotion (to better and more quickly make decisions) there is still a disconnect between Breq and the other humans she interacts with. If like our book club, you enjoy Ancillary Justice, there are two additional novels in the Imperial Radch Trilogy, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy.
All Systems Red
by Martha Wells
We read All Systems Red for our April Book Discussion. All Systems Red is a novella so it is quick, but action packed read, which focuses on the self-identified Murderbot, a security unit who has overcome its governor module, but still mostly does its job as usual, though Murderbot secretly spends hours watching its favorite soap opera. It was interesting when reading Ancillary Justice to compare Breq with the Murderbot from the novel we had read earlier in the year. Both are aware of the separateness from humans but in neither case do they pine to be human and instead are content in their cyborg state neither fully machine nor all human. Neither feels the need to define their gender, though there are hints in both cases that they may have a “female” body. I think this moves away from older works where often robots or cyborgs longed for humanity in order to be seen as real. Now that we are more accepting of neurodiversity and more fluid gender identities, these stories seem to be transitioning to being more about acceptance. I really enjoyed the humor found through out the story and also checked out the next two in the series. Besides the standard audio recordings for the series you can also listen to them in graphic audio with a full cast recording. I really love the graphic audio versions they remind me of old fashioned radio dramas for a new generation.
If you would like to join our book club, our next meeting will be on Monday, August 26 at 6 PM at the Main Branch. We will be discussing C.L. Polk’s fantasy, Witchmark. I’ve enjoyed and blogged about Polk’s The Midnight Bargain and Even Though I Knew the End.
Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 