As can be expected, Leckie delivers another wonderful space opera where the political and personal collide. A few years after the events of Ancillary Mercy, the issue facing humanish space is an update of the Treaty between the Radchaii Empire (divided and at war with itself under the immortal multiple Empress Anaander Mianaai) and the impossibly powerful and alien Presgr over the status of the AI cores which run Radchaii ships and stations.

Into this tinderbox are thrown the lives of three intersection people. Enae is on a make-work mission to look for a fugitive Presgr Translator. Reet is a orphan, going about his isolated life on a distant station. and Qven is an adolescent Translator, aiming towards the mysteries of adulthood and match, growing up in a creche where getting vivisected and eaten by the other children is just one of the hazards.

Reet gets drawn into ethnic political intrigues, Qven develops doubts about her future and attempts to flee, and most unexpectedly of all, Enae completes her mission, determining that Reet is a descendent of the missing Translator. All three plotlines converge at the Treaty Conclave, where the issue of where Reet and Qven belong, and if they are human or Translator, gets tossed like a ball between all the political agenda.

As always, words and worldbuilding are great. Non-Radch characters are a lot of fun, given that the Radchaii are repressed imperialists ruled by a schizophrenic Empress who never experience an emotion stronger than 'more tea', and while revealing more about Presgr Translators removes some mystery from the world, it is wonderfully weird. The plotting, however, is a little slapdash, and in particular Enae and Reet's encounter and Qven's motivation for escape feel like arbitrary gambits to keep the story on course, rather than natural evolutions of circumstance.