4 Reasons We’re Going to Miss Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Series

The narrator
It’s quite unusual to find such an ambitious story told from a first-person perspective, but Breq, also known as One Esk Nineteen, formerly the starship Justice of Toren, is a fascinating lens through which to view a conflict that is, at its most basic level, about the inherent value of all life. Considering, you know, she’s not technically a living thing. Or is she? That’s the question, and it’s hardly a straightforward one when you are dealing with a once-vast artificial intelligence spread through a ship’s computer and hundreds of networked, brain-wiped human bodies, now confined to a single, frail human form. Leckie never lets us forget how alien a creature she is, both to herself (she’s constantly longing to reconnect with her nonexistent networked selves) and to everyone she meets (to even those who don’t know what she truly is, Breq’s odd mannerisms, blunted emotions, and constant singing single her out as an oddball). Perhaps it is odd to relate so closely to an artificial intelligence, but to paraphrase a famous captain, I’ve encountered a lot of minds in my time as a sci-fi reader, and by the end of the trilogy, her’s is easily one of the most human.

The setting
These books take place in one of my favorite galactic settings in ages, and it’s pretty clear by the end of the third book that we’ve only glimpsed the rings of a vast gas giant. The Imperial Radch is a galaxy-spanning governing body that has colonized and cannibalized dozens of worlds, any of which could provide the setting for human (and non-human) drama as great as what the trilogy delivers. The politics are gripping—the push and pull between the dominant culture and the one being absorbed would provide endless fodder for complex, probing stories of culture clash. And I didn’t even mention that entire mysterious galaxy that exists within a sealed Dyson sphere at the center of it all. I would love to know what’s going on in there, and the books spend, at best, a paragraph on it. I want to know more!
The scope
Hear me out on this one. Leckie does something quite unusual with this series, something I’d almost consider revolutionary: she manages to pack the galaxy-altering clashes, complex political intrigues, and battles among the stars that are the definition of space opera into a first-person perspective, with a plot that actually seems to narrow as it goes—after the first book, we barely even leave the confines of a single space station! It’s kind of mind-boggling—the thesis of the thing turns out to be that everything we do matters, and every life matters, because any one decision, any small defiance, can change the fate of worlds. But this is no heroes’ journey—the real world is so much more complex than prophecy and destiny, and Leckie’s world is as real as they come.

The characters
As much as this trilogy is Breq’s journey, Leckie surrounds her with flawed, frustrating, deeply memorable characters who I’m sad to see go. Though she only appears in a few crucial flashback scenes, we come to understand why a soul like Lt. Awn’s could inspire a rebellion. The prickly Seivarden, an aristocratic soldier brought low, struggling with addiction and alienation, undergoes as complete a transformation in three novels as Breq, her closest confidant and not-quite-friend. Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy introduce us to two brain-scrambled human representatives of an extraterrestrial power, both of whom manage to communicate the threat of the decidedly unknowable other through their marked lack of social graces, willingness to speak aloud whatever thoughts flit across their minds, and, in at least one case, an unstoppable appetite. And then there’s Anaander Mianaai, the many-bodied Lord of the Radch, ostensibly human but just as fractured and damaged as Breq, at war with herself and holding the fate of countless worlds in her many hands. Friend or foe, Leckie crafts characters who don’t fit into molds or satisfy tropes, who are as weird and angular as her storytelling, and all the more compelling for it.
We bereft readers do have something to look forward to: Leckie has promised to return to this world in the future, though not necessarily to these characters (Breq’s story certainly comes to a satisfying, definitive end). But that’s years from now. Until then, we’ll have to content ourselves with reading them all over again.
What is your most-missed SF series?