Ancillary Sword cover art

Ancillary Sword

The Imperial Radch series, Book 2

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Ancillary Sword

By: Ann Leckie
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
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About this listen

Justice for all

Breq - the soldier who used to be a spaceship - is serving the emperor she swore to destroy. She's been given her own warship, her own crew, and ordered to the only place in the galaxy she would have agreed to go: to Athoek Station, to protect the family of the lieutenant she murdered in cold blood. Athoek was annexed by the Empire some 600 years ago, and by now everyone is fully 'civilised'. Or should be - but everything is not as tranquil as it appears. Old divisions are still troublesome, Athoek Station's AI is restless, and it looks like the alien Presger might have taken an interest in what's going on. With no guarantees that their interest is benevolent.

©2014 Ann Leckie (P)2014 Hachette Audio Adventure Fiction Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Solider

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Critic reviews

"Leckie proves she's no mere flash in the pan with this follow-up to her multiple-award-winning debut space opera, Ancillary Justice." ( Kirkus Reviews)
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That's how I described the book to my girlfriend. I absolutely love how subtle societal mores of the depicted cultures are described and exploited to give such a sense of depth and breadth to the universe. An utterly unique take on science fiction that does not come across as fluffy in the least.

I love hard science fiction and where necessary it is mentioned here with light speed delays being mixed comfortably with hyper space jumps while the crew are holding tea parties attended by human bodies controlled by artificially intelligent ships.

Exploration of interesting subjects from coping with loss to how an artificial intelligence in control of multiple biological bodies might take care of all of their needs.

If you hadn't guessed, I greatly recommend this series to anyone who finds subtle social situations, unusual cultures and even the melding of human and machine to be of interest.

Jane Austin in Space Returns

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A little slower paced than the first book, but enjoyable. Great narration. Continues the world building and sets the scene for book three.

Good as trilogy middle books go

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the first booked finished as an omnipresent AI God went to war with itself. This book ignores all the turbulence presumably happening elsewhere while we're concerned with substandard housing and plumbing issues on a backwater space station with a downtrodden workforce and plenty of tea shops.

HR issues and slum housing in space

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It's nice to continue following the story but when the climax of it started I was surprised. I felt nothing particular had happened so far. Overall the story felt like a setup for the next book.

The performance is great. Engaging and with a range of accents.

Part of the charm of the first story was the many and potentially simultaneous POV of the ancillaries. This dual POV is again present for some scenes but it feels more like a technical exercise and it's odd how these disparate but important events seem to happen at once.

The single gender pronouns continue throughout the book. I feel I have a better sense of characters gender but I may well be wrong. I suppose it doesn't matter to me, which is the point after all.

Enjoyable but feels like a setup for next book

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Would you try another book written by Ann Leckie or narrated by Adjoa Andoh?

narrated by Adjoa Andoh - yes
written by Ann Leckie - probably not

What does Adjoa Andoh bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Accents of the characters bring them to life

Was Ancillary Sword worth the listening time?

it was an OK listen, bought it after listening the first book. probably should have stopped after the first (which i enjoyed)

Good performance makes up for the lack of story

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