Another disappointing sequel to the excellent Ancillary Justice, even more tedious than Ancillary Sword. Much of it feels like an extended “agony aunt column” or psychotherapy session, with the MC giving life advice time and again to several other characters. Even what little action occurs is oddly lacklustre and unexciting. In fact the whole novel feels strangely static.

There’s no significant development in the characters, in the political situation or in the ethical dilemmas the characters contend with. I’m guessing the repetition of tea drinking and tea things is a nod to the reader to see parallels between the imperialism of the Radch and the British Empire. The silliness with personal pronouns continues and even briefly discussed by characters in a vague sort of way that struck me as pretty pointless. I’m not one who regards the primary function of fiction as being a kind of soft political propaganda, so none of these aspects impressed me.

In a nutshell, my recommendation is to read the excellent Ancillary Justice but not to bother with the following two novels, Ancillary Sword and this one.

I loveeeee how this wrapped up!! Ann Leckie's writing definitely does it for me. 

I don't have much to say about this book - I enjoyed it a lot and it was very good but despite having a fairly high stakes climax it felt a little anti-climactic for the end of the trilogy. I think this book was very good but not quite as good as the first two (mainly because of the ending). Everything is tidy-ish but it leaves a lot of questions as to what will happen next, which I understand some people like but I find a little unsatisfying. Ending aside though, this book was great. It was interesting to see Breq have some character development when throughout the series she has been a fairly static figure that has caused change in others.