Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Ancillary is the third installment in Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy. I was kind of hoping that the final installment would have some bigger and deeper revelation, but that is not the case. I enjoyed reading it but throughout I was puzzled by the lack of depth of it. I think it's because it seemed from the start to be set up as a story that would lead to some sort of revelation, about artificial intelligence, or maybe about gender, or about cultural differences, and indeed all of these themes are present in the book, but not for their meaning, rather as props or plot points in what is a decent, but somewhat unambitious space opera series. Weirdly, the universe depicted is quite intricate weird, alien in many ways, and I suspect my frustration is that Leckie could have done so much more with it. It's a good read, but one that left me frustrated.