The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 5

Discuss the end of the book and the book as a whole. Link your reviews.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

So I finished this yesterday and I've been mulling it over.

I think one of the best things about the first book was the tripartite plot with the defining moment of Awn's murder forming a shocking intersection that defines both Breq and her quest.

In this one it's just straight through and there's really no plot twists to speak of. It takes no particular genius to work out that the Sword of Atagaris was going to be involved in whatever wrongdoing was going on pretty much from the moment it reacts in a hostile manner to the appearance of Mercy of Kalr.

In terms of characters relating to the plot, the bad guys are idiots with absolutely no idea what they're up against and Breq's exposition of the criminal activity is so contemptuous of their abilities that she deliberately provokes the gun-to-the-head showdown at the end. Gun-to-the-head? Really?! In a space opera with such beautifully constructed detail and science fictional ideas, that's where we're going with this?

There's a ship out of time, pre-Radch, sitting on the other side of a Ghost gate and a brewing interstellar war. I want to read the book that engages with that stuff! (Hopefully the next one).

There were lots of positives though. I think I get Radchaai culture more with this book, and a fair bit of effort is put into the sexual and relationship elements of it. After the first book I couldn't say what a romantic/sexual relationship between Radchaai citizens would look like, but there's exposure of all types here.

There's also a lot more depth in the ship culture as well. I think it's wonderful that despite not even having names you get distinctly communicated personalities in Kalr Five, Kalr Eight, Bo Nine and Kalr Twelve. That these are also closer to family units rather than ship crews also comes across clearly.

Overall, an enjoyable book but not a patch on the previous one. Also seriously suffers from middle book syndrome.

I ended up going with 4 stars, but it's probably a 3.5 star.

As I mentioned in the last section, most of the book seems very "small".

I would have liked more time spent on who/what is beyond the Ghost Gate rather than some ambiguous warship class thought to have all been destroyed. Instead we spend a lot of time on planet/in a space station dealing with petty problems and social injustice that is probably taking place everywhere in the empire.

And I agree about the bad guys being severely outmatched. But I kind of like the more straight forward plot. I think it would be too gimmicky if did something similar again.

I did like how she still did some of the multiple POV things thanks to Breq's connection to her new ship.

And I like that it came out Breq is an ancillary. Overall I enjoyed the story, but it just felt like a side story more than anything. I'll probably have a full review this weekend.

My Review

I agree with all of Rob and Lindsay's points above. I liked how it went deeper into some of the finer points of radchaii society and relationships, but the smaller scale of the story was a letdown after the first book. It did seem like more of a padded, drawn-out side story than a full-fledged installment of the series. I haven't rated it yet, but I think it's somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star book; probably closer to a 3.