soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2017-12-14 06:24 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2017-12-14 06:24 pm
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as expected! Ann Leckie is brilliant as always, I loved the worldbuilding, I loved the characters, and I loved all sorts of random little well-chosen details throughout the book.
Some things I particularly liked:
- the entire plot is basically about the provenance of archival materials
- there is a trinary gender system for humans in this part of the universe
- despite there being a gender trinary there are still people who don't quite fit within it, eg Ingray's love interest who eventually settles on a gender to present as just because she wants to be an adult, and also the Raadchai ambassador to the Geck who is thoroughly Raadchai-gendered and could never be mistaken for man, woman, or neman.
- the book ended with the main character proving to herself and others that she is actually worthy and capable and all that, but her deciding, actually, what she really wants is a quiet life with no adventure or excess politics now that her Big Political Adventure is over.
- the intersection of various alien cultures! I eat that stuff up with a spoon. The ones who, depending on their relationship to another person, can never ever talk directly to or about that person! The Geck who think the only possible way to be happy is to live on their planet! The Raadchai accent being a shorthand for villainy in movies! Literally everyone thinking the Hwaeans are super weird for the reverence with which they treat vestiges!
And so forth. I didn't adore this book quite as much as I adored the Imperial Radch trilogy but that would have taken some doing, and I am still thoroughly pleased with this book and will continue to immediately read everything Ann Leckie ever publishes.
Some things I particularly liked:
- the entire plot is basically about the provenance of archival materials
- there is a trinary gender system for humans in this part of the universe
- despite there being a gender trinary there are still people who don't quite fit within it, eg Ingray's love interest who eventually settles on a gender to present as just because she wants to be an adult, and also the Raadchai ambassador to the Geck who is thoroughly Raadchai-gendered and could never be mistaken for man, woman, or neman.
- the book ended with the main character proving to herself and others that she is actually worthy and capable and all that, but her deciding, actually, what she really wants is a quiet life with no adventure or excess politics now that her Big Political Adventure is over.
- the intersection of various alien cultures! I eat that stuff up with a spoon. The ones who, depending on their relationship to another person, can never ever talk directly to or about that person! The Geck who think the only possible way to be happy is to live on their planet! The Raadchai accent being a shorthand for villainy in movies! Literally everyone thinking the Hwaeans are super weird for the reverence with which they treat vestiges!
And so forth. I didn't adore this book quite as much as I adored the Imperial Radch trilogy but that would have taken some doing, and I am still thoroughly pleased with this book and will continue to immediately read everything Ann Leckie ever publishes.
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