(originally posted 04 Nov 2015 on trenchkamen.livejournal.com)

Third book in the Imperial Radch trilogy; reviews of Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword are here. The comments on atmosphere, narration, etc, in those reviews still applies, so this is intended to be read as a continuation of those reviews.

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The Radch civil war is beginning. The signal from a remote space station that would start moving factions against one another has finally been transmitted, and completely independent of that Athoek station is already in a state of sociopolitical unrest. The wealthy Radchaai are looking to claim the now-revamped Undergarden from the marginalized Ychana, and the resulting political stonewalling is leading to strikes and demonstrations. It is into this atmosphere that the leader of the Radch finally arrives—or at least one of her manifestations—and this manifestation is the one that wants Breq, and everything she knows, erased from history.

The Radch Empire is one of the few examples I can think of that is a truly genderless society. As I said in the review of Ancillary Justice, Breq’s native language does not have gendered pronouns, and Leckie chose to use the feminine (she, her, etc) instead of the masculine, which I think is a stroke of genius (notable exception being the title of address ‘Sir’ instead of ‘Ma’am’; I assume the term of address in Radchaai has the gravity and respect usually accorded to a ‘sir’). Had Leckie used the ‘universal’ masculine it would be assumed, subconsciously, that all of the characters were male unless stated otherwise, and the flavor of the book would be like those of older sci-fi books where that gender ratio was prevalent. But using entirely feminine pronouns resets, in a way, the reader’s expectations, and I found it easier to imagine a truly genderless set of people using female pronouns with each other than male. This is not because female is inherently more ‘universal’ than male, but because it is something different from the paradigm of our own language, and makes us re-evaluate, instead of allowing our brains to go on autopilot. I think this is what Ursula K. Le Guin was trying to achieve in The Left Hand of Darkness, but Leckie achieved it in a far more natural, visceral way just by using the feminine instead of the masculine as default. In a way I think, to our modern-day readers who grew up in a gendered society, that it is even better than using gender-neutral pronouns (ze, etc)—we still tend to imagine male as default unless otherwise prompted. But that is a reflection of our times, not of anything universal.

Genderless does not mean sexless—humans are still sexually dimorphic in this universe, but this has no importance beyond the mechanical-reproductive. Gender—the sociological phenomenon of gender roles, behavior, dress, etc—is what has been obliterated, and while people warn that the human tapestry will lose its richness if we lose these gender roles, I see evidence in this story that is not at all the case. There will still be politics, relationships, wars, life and death, class struggle—in other words, conflict, without conflicts centered around gender. This is not an admonishment to ignore the effects of gender in stories set in societies where it exists—as it does have a huge impact on us all—but rather an observation that striving for a genderless society is not synonymous with striving for a homogenized, bland, paste-pudding society as reactionaries would have you believe.

It is also shown in the story that recognizing gender, or even physical sex, is a skill programmed by language. Breq has a difficult time guessing the sex of other humans, and when she has to switch to a language that uses gendered pronouns, or is talking with people for whom gender is important, she takes particular care to speak in such a way that the other party will probably indicate gender before she can cause offence by using the wrong form. Indeed, most of the characters’ sexes are never revealed, unless narrative calls for it, and this includes Breq. And the narrative, and the characters, are absolutely no less fascinating for it.

There is, however, in Radchaai, a difference between sentient and non-sentient pronouns (her vs it), the non-sentient form being used for spaceships and other AIs—basically, beings who work on hardware instead of wetware, with the exception of the ancillaries, who are also called ‘it’. ‘It’ still has the dehumanizing (or depersonalizing, I suppose, would be more correct) implications it does today. ‘It’s aren’t citizens. ‘It’s don’t have the right to exercise free will. ‘It’s are not, in the most fundamental sense, persons, whose rights to exist are inherent in the fact that they exist at all in the first place. Of course this line of discussion will lead me directly into the whole sodding rigmarole where we debate whether any of us has free will, really, or if machines can just ape human emotion so well that our primitive savannah-brains take their expressions of emotion as indicative of true feeling, etc etc. It’s all part of the story, so I won’t discuss at length how it’s resolved here. It is certainly an interesting take, but I can’t really discuss it without spoiling the ending. Well, I can say that it is by no means a new take, but it is a satisfying take. Indeed, the very concept that human lives come before those of machines is questioned in a curious way.

I suppose that is the core of my take on the whole trilogy. As I said in the reviews for the first two volumes, it is soaked in familiar tropes and conceits—and is still solid. The take, the way it is handled, and the tone, are what make this a unique story. It’s a fresh structure on old scaffolding.  It’s a space opera with the scale of intimacy, a small cast in an intergalactic context, looking out on the vastness of space. The ending seemed anticlimactic, but upon reflection I can see how it would be a realistic course for things to take. It still feels weak, despite logic dictating that it’s perfectly reasonable, and I don’t envy Leckie the pressure she must have been under to make a stellar finish given all the accolades heaped on her first book. It does set up for further stories in this universe, and I very much hope there are more.

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On a personal note, I had the honor of meeting Ann Leckie at Phoenix Comicon last June. It was a happy mistake—I hadn’t originally planned on being in town that weekend, but at the last minute decided to come out for a visit after my spring TA assignment was over. I was helping Kaity run her table in Artists’ Alley, and we happened to be next to the author signing area. I found out on the pamphlet I *finally* got around to reading that she was going to be there, that Saturday, the one day I happened to be there, almost burst an aneurysm, and when it was her turn to table I finally worked up the courage to faux-nonchalantly slide over there. Shockingly enough, there was nobody in line for her. She was absolutely lovely and cordial and indulged my questions and general social anxiety and stammering, and gave me an Awn Elming memorial pin (which is now on my messenger bag). I had not brought my books with me to be signed, and was half-considering buying them again at the con to get signed copies, but she came prepared with sticker-scrolls for the inner covers of the books she could sign. She signed three of them for me, including one in anticipation of Ancillary Mercy’s release a few months from that point.

I dearly wish I had taken a picture with her, but at the time my hair was absolutely vile and greasy (despite sitting in the shower for two hours with dish soap in my hair the night before) from the topical anaesthetic for a procedure that involved multiple needle sticks in my scalp. Took a goddamn week to get all of it out. Pain in the arse; next time I had the procedure done I just skipped the scalp numbing. Anyway, I was half-considering not going up to her at all because I looked like something that had crawled out of a drain or, more likely given the venue, a LAN party. I’m so glad I did talk to her anyway.