Join This Fandom: Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch

Dear friends and family: so many of you are waiting for the next installment of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice saga. I can’t say that I feel your exact pain, since I’m not into Game of Thrones, but I do know the frustration of waiting for the next book in an awesome series. In fact, that’s why I wanted to talk to you today.

Y’see, I’m waiting on the edge of my seat for the next volumes of more than one fantastic story. And I know that while frustration is part of it, so is delicious anticipation. The joy of finding a story worth waiting for is reward enough in itself. And though we hate to admit it, so is dreaming, dismissing, debating what could/should/totally will happen next.

That last one is why I’m writing this today. Because, damnit, you all have plenty of fun thirsting for The Winds of Winter. Join me in dancing on the spot for these.

This week, I’ll tell you about my latest science fiction infatuation, Ann Leckie‘s Imperial Radch series. If that doesn’t float your boat, stay tuned next week for my thoughts on Maggie Stiefvater‘s Raven Cycle.

The Imperial Radch series currently consists of two books, Ancillary Justice (2013) and Ancillary Sword (2014), with the third, Ancillary Mercy, anticipated later this year.

What is this series about? Well, it’s… hmmm. It’s easy to explain in a sentence or two, but the most concise ways of phrasing it all make it sound tired, simplistic, or derivative, when it’s anything but.

Let’s just say it’s far-future science fiction set in a time when humanity has spread to extraterrestrial planets and developed AIs that are simultaneously conscious in multiple bodies and machines. Breq, our narrator, is such an AI, created by the colonizing Radch empire. Due to circumstances we discover through the course of the first book, Breq has been reduced to a single human body, and she’s on a quest to do something about it.

Why is this series so great? Well, because the first time I picked it up, I gave up on Ancillary Justice after only about a dozen pages.

No, seriously. Bear with me.

See, I’d downloaded a library e-copy on my phone and could therefore read only short chunks of text at a time. But this world — the interacting elements of FTL space travel, colonization, politics, AI, consciousness, emotions, gender, and war technologies that Leckie has created — requires consistent attention to piece it all together. And Leckie trusts us, the readers, to add to our image of this universe daub by daub until we can step back in a series of deeply satisfying moments and see how the whole picture comes together and moves the plot forward. Putting something together bit by bit when you can only read grain by grain is a frustrating experience.

I’m glad I saw so many reviewers, publishing Twitter users, and generally cool people online post their enthusiasm forAncillary Justice. It made me decide to give the book another shot, this time in paperback form.

I won’t tell you I couldn’t put it down. For me, the unputdownable ones tend to be fast-paced but brainless. Smart books with great writing that I really like, I savour on purpose. Taking breaks to delay that inevitable moment when I’m facing endpapers, hoping for more.

Still unconvinced? Allow me to rally my favourite three elements of the series:

1. Breq, the protagonist, possesses a depth of feeling that builds through her actions yet is completely consistent with her status as an AI. We see her profound humanism in the way she treats people, and each new character or situation she encounters draws out more facets of her personality. She’s always been a person — a good person, even — but we follow her journey as she continues to redefine her self-image.

On top of that, she’s still in possession of neat sense-extending abilities that connect her to technologies and give her special insight into the people and machines she meets. Her centuries of experience give her a perspective ordinary humans lack; when characters mention historic events that caused the current crisis, she remembers being there. She can whip our her unique perceptions like a superhero unveiling a secret power.

She’s a fascinating and intriguing creation, and if you like characters like Spock or Data from Star Trek, you will love Breq.

2. The best science fiction uses the future to explore the issues of the present, and the Imperial Radch series is no exception. Breq spent most of her existence working for the colonizing power that created her: centuries later, she must deal with the aftereffects of her former masters as well as the ongoing inequality perpetuated by her peers.

This is where my own perspective biases me: Breq is, in essence, a repentant colonizer who can strive for goodness despite the horrendous events she has facilitated because she had no choice in the literal programming of her mind. She’s a “safe” stand-in for people like me, people living on colonized land, descended from nations and cultures that did the colonizing, and still benefitting from nations struggling to be free of Western imperialism’s destructive footprint. Breq’s complicity appeals to me because I, too, am complicit in injustices that I didn’t choose to be born into, and I like her struggle to repair the damage she has helped cause.

But what I like best is that the series acknowledges how problematic that is at the same time: she can work for good, her idea of good, and only because she is still a colonizer. The power that lets her try to do the right thing now is possible only because of the evil she committed in the past, and we are forced to consider whether she can make a positive difference for anyone but herself and her fellow guilty colonizers.

3. I hands-down love the way these novels deal with gender and sexuality.

The dominant Radch culture does not have a concept of gender. They identify different sexual organs, and biological differences are still apparent to those from other cultures, but recognizing someone as a “he” or a “she” is absolutely meaningless to them.

That may sound like a relatively common sci-fi trope, but the difference is in the way Leckie lets it change how Breq tells the story. Unless prompted by a character from a gender-distinguishing culture, Breq simply uses female pronouns to refer to all humans. When a noun is gendered (like “mother” or “father”), she uses the female version. Yes, it was a bit tough to get into at first, but once I got the hang of it, it blew me away.

I love that the default is female. Not only does it subvert the everyday use of “he” as the neutral assumption (and the pervasive idea male = regular person, female = special type of person), the dissonance between the way my culture has trained me to think of neutral gender and femininity helps me forge a space to actually get the idea of gender out of my mind, to think “androgynous” instead of “default male.”

I love how I stop caring whether the characters Breq meets are male or female; I stop trying to picture them and instead see them (and her) the way she does, as humans. Their own genders and the genders of their romantic partners matter not at all.

That’s some powerful use of language, to upend ideas ingrained in me since the day I was born. That’s what the written word can do at the height of its power.

So, for all these reasons, I hope I’ve convinced you to join my Imperial Radch mini fan club. If not, there’s still hope: I’ll be back next week with another exciting episode of JOIN! THIS! FANDOM.