The New York Times Book Review - N. K. Jemisin
…[Provenance] stands well as a sort of thematic coda to the Radch trilogy, and should please those who like tea with their space opera.
From the Publisher
"There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who ever could."—John Scalzi
"More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love."—Kirkus
"Character-centered space opera from one of SF's brightest stars."—Library Journal
"A perfect follow-up to the trilogy."—The New York Times
"The trademarks of Leckie's talent are on display, with even more worlds for readers to discover and some teasing overlap with her previous series. But what makes this book is watching Ingray overcome her poor self-esteem and discover who she actually wants to be, demonstrating again the genre's capacity to tell compelling, human stories."—RT Book Reviews
"The intricacies and oddities are a delight.... A thrill for fans of heists and capers."—Washington Post
"A careful look at how no one's immune from politics, even if they think themselves outside the fray . . . A story about the necessity of exploring the edges of the known."—NPR
"An entertaining, thoughtful, and clever entry that both Leckie's new and returning readers can delve into and enjoy."—The Los Angeles Review of Books
"[Leckie] raises provocative questions about identity, family and self-esteem. By the end, both neophytes and longtime Leckie fans are likely to be pleased."—The San Francisco Chronicle
"The trappings of widescreen sci-fi, and the attention to character, to the small moments, to the inner lives of those living through outsized events . . . Just read it."—B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog
"Complex and beautiful."—SYFY Wire
"If you don't know the Ancillary series by now, you probably should. Ann Leckie's sociopolitical space opera almost singlehandedly breathed new cool into the stereotype of spaceships trundling through far-off systems amid laser battles. ... [Ancillary Mercy] earns the credit it's received: As a capstone to a series that shook genre expectations, as our closing installment of an immersively realized world, and as the poignant story of a ship that learned to sing."—NPR Books on Ancillary Mercy
"This trilogy will stand as a classic of SF for the ages."—Library Journal on Ancillary Mercy
"Powerful."—The New York Times on Ancillary Sword
"The sort of space opera audiences have been waiting for."—NPR Books on Ancillary Sword
"No science-fiction series as descriptive of our current political and cultural moment or as insistent that we open our eyes to it."—Slate on Ancillary Mercy
"A gripping read, with top-notch world building and a set of rich subtexts about human rights, colonialism — and (yes) hive mind sex."—io9 on Ancillary Sword
"Leckie investigates what it means to be human, to be an individual and to live in a civilized society."—Scientific American on Ancillary Sword
Kirkus Reviews
2017-07-17
A woman seeking the approval of her foster mother takes a desperate gamble and finds herself in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy.To help her foster mother, Netano, shame a political rival, Ingray Aughskold of the planet Hwae bribes a broker to smuggle the notorious Pahlad Budrakim out of prison, hoping that Pahlad will reveal the location of the valuable family antiques e stole. (Pahlad is a "neman," a gender using the pronouns e/eir/em.) This supposedly simple plan soon gets complicated thanks to Ingray's scheming foster brother, Danach, a neighboring planetary government that frames Pahlad for murder, an alien ambassador with a persistent interest in Ingray and her associates...and the fact that Pahlad never stole the antiques in the first place. Setting her new novel in the same universe as her previous books (Ancillary Mercy, 2015, etc.), Leckie again uses large-scale worldbuilding to tell a deeply personal story—in this case, to explore what binds children to their families. As always, she impels the reader to consider the power language, and specifically names, has to shape perception and reality. The title is meaningful in several senses. "Provenance" initially refers to vestiges, the antiques so highly valued on Hwae, many of which are probably fakes; but more importantly, it means the struggle to understand where people come from and how it made them what they are, how they will define themselves now, and what labels they will choose to bear going forward. In aid of that point, a deeper look into the relationship between Ingray and Netano might have strengthened the book, and so might evidence of Danach's much-discussed political ability—all we see from him are smugness and petulance, while Ingray demonstrates far more political adeptness. But since the novel is told from Ingray's perspective, which is that of a woman with poor self-esteem discovering her confidence and true worth, Danach may not have been all that brilliant to begin with. More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love.
