#23: Ann Leckie, Provenance
Dec. 22nd, 2017 01:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareila posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
kareila_booksI have a confession to make - I still haven't read Ancillary Mercy, mostly because I made the mistake of purchasing it instead of borrowing it from the library. But when I saw Provenance on the library shelves, I couldn't wait to see what else was going on in the Radch universe, even at the risk of spoilers for the end of Breq's story.
It turns out I needn't have worried - apart from the existence of a new treaty conclave, and vague mentions of chaos in Radch space, the Radchaai are barely present in this book. Instead it focuses on the politics of the Hwae system and unforeseen interactions with the Omkem and with the alien Geck. The background information is rather dense and goes down more easily if one is already familiar with the universe. The author also continues to play with gender and identity here: the Hwae have at least three distinct genders, change their names upon reaching adulthood, and take the name of their parent if they are designated to inherit - which often leads to the somewhat confusing situation of two living family members sharing the same identity.
The protagonist, Ingray, is a young adult, competing with her one remaining sibling for the favor of their mother, an influential politician on Hwae who has not yet named her heir. As the story begins, Ingray has travelled to the neighboring Tyr system to hatch a desperate ploy that she hopes will secure her status in the household once and for all, but events unfold in directions she never could have anticipated. Eventually she is forced to improvise and rely on improbable allies in order to save the people she cares about and possibly thwart a hostile foreign action. I'm tempted to say that it reads more like Star Wars where the Ancillary trilogy is more like Star Trek, if that's a useful comparison.
It turns out I needn't have worried - apart from the existence of a new treaty conclave, and vague mentions of chaos in Radch space, the Radchaai are barely present in this book. Instead it focuses on the politics of the Hwae system and unforeseen interactions with the Omkem and with the alien Geck. The background information is rather dense and goes down more easily if one is already familiar with the universe. The author also continues to play with gender and identity here: the Hwae have at least three distinct genders, change their names upon reaching adulthood, and take the name of their parent if they are designated to inherit - which often leads to the somewhat confusing situation of two living family members sharing the same identity.
The protagonist, Ingray, is a young adult, competing with her one remaining sibling for the favor of their mother, an influential politician on Hwae who has not yet named her heir. As the story begins, Ingray has travelled to the neighboring Tyr system to hatch a desperate ploy that she hopes will secure her status in the household once and for all, but events unfold in directions she never could have anticipated. Eventually she is forced to improvise and rely on improbable allies in order to save the people she cares about and possibly thwart a hostile foreign action. I'm tempted to say that it reads more like Star Wars where the Ancillary trilogy is more like Star Trek, if that's a useful comparison.
