A recurring theme in Ancillary Sword is that truth and fairness are relative to perspective, that one person’s truth may be hard for another to even conceive. In that spirit, here’s a couple of truths about this book - choose whichever you like.
—Option 1—
Ancillary Sword is a profound book about race and culture. Leckie examines the forces that create and sustain prejudice and stereotyping from all parties involved. You see how hard these prejudices are to dislodge because they are so prevalent, lurking deep in the subcontext behind even banal small talk.
—Option 2—
Ancillary Sword is about a godlike being with dictatorial levels of authority who is sent to a planet to prevent political instability. Upon arrival, it seems politically stable and that turns out to be mostly correct. There are a few minor events very late in the book to challenge that, but they are brief and without suspense against the main character’s near omniscience and omnipotence.
One of these books is profound, timely, and remarkable, with much more to say than Ancillary Justice. One of them is painfully boring. I suspect both books would have benefitted from providing real challenges to the main character. I’m glad I read it, but it’s hard to imagine revisiting it.
