Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Started: May 8

Finished: May 12

Pages: 356

Ancillary Justice won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Ann Leckie, which is quite an accomplishment for a first novel.  Ancillary Sword is the sequel.

Has there every been an outstanding "first" book that was outdone by its sequel?  That's an interesting question, and not one that I propose to answer from my own reading experience.  

But in thinking about the question, I was reminded of Scott McCloud's take on creativity and "great works" from Understanding Comics.  He suggests that are two types of great artists:  those whose greatness comes from mastery, and those whose greatness comes from innovation.  The first type of artist creates their greatest works in the fullness of their careers.  Earlier works are like practice runs for their greatest work, which comes as the artist develops full mastery of message and technique.   The second type of artist is a revelation:  they seem to spring from nowhere to astonish the world.  They often provide something radically new.  Subsequent work by that artist may not seem as original or as interesting, and later artists may well build on that innovative artitst's originality,and create more polished versions of what made the innovator great.  There are innumerable examples of artists of type 2:  Jane Austen, for one.  

In a science fictional context, any author who wins the Nebula and the Hugo with their first novel must be in category 2, right?  They must be an innovator.  But ......what was new about Ancillary Justice?  The main character of that novel is an embodied artificial intelligence: a starship's intelligence in a human body.  This isn't novel.  If I could be bothered to pick through the stacks on the shelf behind me I could give you the title and author of a book more than 15 years old that features an artificial intelligence that assumes human form.  (Although that info would definitely be a spoiler for the book).  Is the universe that Leckie creates novel?  Nope, it's a standard space opera universe: a multi-solar-system human empire with faster-than-light travel and powerful and inscrutable aliens on the fringe. 

So, why did Leckie win?  Basically, good writing.  She uses a limited viewpoint/unreliable narrator to tell her story, while doing a whole lot of showing rather than telling.  She provides a novel viewpoint on the story she chooses to tell, and animates her plot, characters, and themes in a compelling way.

Ancillary Sword continues the story told in the award-winning Ancillary Justice, to much the same standard as the first book.

Does either book provide anything totally new?  Nope.  Are the books interesting?  Yes.  Are they good reads?  Yes again.  So while I wouldn't consider either one a classic,  I was happy to read them.  I'd recommend Ancillary Justice to any SF reader.