#anne leckie

[elexuscal]

original trilogy: haha wow both Dlique and Zieat were so weird... Constantly getting into trouble, going places they shouldn't, eating random shit, hating boredom... I guess that's what all Presger Translators are like

Translation State: well yes. but some of that was just Dlique-Zieat.

[fourandahalfapple]

Translation state ended too quickly! I would love to stay in that world forever and ever and ever. It was so satisfying seeing the familiar characters of the Republic of two system AND have the pleasure of falling in love with Enae, Reet and Qven. Ann is my absolute favourite author and once again she has created a clever piece of art!

[six-improbable-things]

Me, trying to explain The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie to someone else:

Oh, and the Horatio character is trans.

[nevinslibrary]

Weird & Wonderful Wednesday

Oohhkaayyy…. Breq used to be the Justice of Toren, a starship (a humongous one) that had AI that linked thousands of soldiers. Both the ship and the soldiers served Radch, the Empire that ruled the galaxy. But, Breq no longer is the ship, now, Breq is just a human, a mortal in a cobbled together body. And Breq wants vengeance on the leader of that Empire.

It took me a little bit to get used to how Leckie wrote the narrative, but, once I got into it, it was so different and yet also very a classic sci fi novel too. A really fun read.

You may like this book If you Liked: The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, or The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

[scribefindegil]

As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.

[volpestarks]

Landscapes inspired by Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch 3/?

[queereads-bracket]

SEMIFINALS: Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Science fiction, classics, speculative fiction, anthropological science fiction, distant future, adult

Imperial Radch series (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy, Provenance, Translation State, and other stories) by Ann Leckie

Endorsement from submitter: "Breq/Justice of Toren is a ship AI and doesn't have a gender. The Radchaai language only has one pronoun for people, so (almost) everyone in the empire is she/her, to the point that they're infamous for failing to correctly guess which pronoun to use with outsiders."

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Science fiction, space opera, far future, series, adult

[othercat2]

Some of these stories were so damn creepy...in an entertaining way.

Book Review: Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie

_Book Review: Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie_ this was an interesting collection of #sciencefiction and #fantasy stories by a favorite author!

The stories in Ann Leckie’s Lake of Souls hover somewhere between The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits in regard to their content and endings. There are a number of ironic twists, there is a story that absolutely isn’t a First Contact, a story that isn’t quite Cosmic Horror and a story that seems to have Bertie Wooster in it as an expy. (Sadly, there is no Jeeves, but the protagonist manages to…

[thetownsendsw]

My staff picks shelf has ended up being VERY Gender at the moment…

[unbizzarre]

One-Esk and Murderbot meet in the waiting lobby for Robo-Therapy

(…specifically rage counseling )

Probably two of my favorite robot/ai/construct protagonists in literature! Though I have a lot. (What’s up Culture shipminds…)

Creation notes:

A pattern I’ve been noticing is that a lot of these robots are very traumatized, very angry, and don’t like talking about their feelings. I was gonna originally make this short comic about One-Esk (aka Breq) and Murderbot on the first day of group therapy for rage counseling and it would just be a bunch of shots of them sitting in silence cuz neither of them like talking about their feelings but, uh…. the shots were just a lot and the series of events wasn’t really flowing right so I scrapped that idea in favor of not having to draw a zillion backgrounds. Still wound up taking a stupidly long time to create a product that feels… underwhelming. I really like how Breq turned out but I just couldn’t get the hair or costume design on MB to really fit the corpo-futuristic spacer asthetic I was going for, while still capturing that social-anxiety-comfort-hoodie energy. (Was originally contemplating having a shot of MB pulling hoodie strings closed over their face in one shot but wound up scrapping that idea as well.) Cannonicallly, MB should probably be in all dark blues and blacks, but the colors just weren’t working so I went with yellow instead. Idk. Maybe it’s a loaner hoodie from one of MB’s humans.

Here’s a shot I never wound up using:

Anyways! I hope this made you smile if you like one or both of these series! 😊

Post script: if you like Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries, you should definitely check out Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy, or vice versa. More angry traumatized non-binary human-ai constructs for all! Mega-latestage-capitolist dystopia, or xenophobic -imperialist-socialist empire? Sentient space ships? C’mon. Just read both series u know you’ll love it.

[elexuscal]

okay so still on my Presger Translator brain rot

Upon re-read of the original Imperial Radch trilogy with the context of Translation Slate, I don't actually think that Translator Zieat/Dlique is that old

like yes, much of their behaviour always seemed quite childlike, and was even described so in Breq's narration. but my original impulse was to write that off as them being alien. and there were also implications that they were relatively low-ranking among the Presger Translators ("not anybody", doing boring work like attending dull religious ceremonies), but of course low-ranking does not inherently equal young, especially when talking about aliens.

and all that's still true. but they can be low-ranking and alien, and young.

they've never been down-well to a planet before. they seem unfamiliar with a great deal of radchaai food. they haven't even sorted out what name they want to go by

which of course is really the tip of the icebetg of their identity issues. Not just what name they're going to use, but what person they want to be. "they" were told they were going to be Dlique-- the "they" presumably being their clade leaders. But Dlique/Zieat seems frustrated on that count. Presumably Dlique was the more established of the two of them-- either did better in their classes, or maybe was the established adult of their match? But either way, they don't quite seem to want to be bridled with being them, not entirely. While they enjoy getting up to Dlique's shenanigans in Ancillary Sword, they're quite pleased being Zieat in Ancillary Mercy.

like i don't know. on first read, we have no way of knowing what presger-translator society is like. and if it seems weird and alien and unpleasant to us, well, who are we to judge?

but now we've peeled behind the curtain. now we know that Presger Translator Clades are as messy and political as any human governing body. that there are privileged individuals and marginalized ones. that Presger kids are literally groomed from birth. that even members within their species aren't Thrilled with how it's all arranged.

At the end of Ancillary Mercy, Zieat-Dlique seems skeptical that they'll have earned a better status from all of this. but come Translation Slate, they're hanging around with Sphene and assisting with the Conclave, so maybe they were wrong on that count.

... and if Translator Zieat-Dlique was a relatively young adult, one with their own struggles fitting into Presger-Translator society, one with an identity that just wasn't quite what their leaders wanted...

Then how wonderful that they'll get to be there for Qven-Reet. Be able to do better by them.

Maybe together, the two/four of them will be able to create some new options for Presger Translators as a whole.

[bambles]

just finished the raven tower and holy SHIT what the FUCK what THE SHIT

[riseandfallofsecunit]

What happened next was largely my own fault.

[ratsreading]

Hm, yes, I can see why people would recommend Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie) for fans of The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)

There are certain similarities, I am happy to report.

[toushindai]

do you think the strength and patience of the hill would let me. climb it