Ancillary Mercy fan art

[asakiyume]

Sphene and Translator Zeiat had spent the last two days in the decade room, playing a game of counters. Or at least it had begun as a standard game of counters. By now it also involved fish-shaped cakes, the fragments of two empty eggshells, and a day-old bowl of tea, which they every now and then dropped a glass counter into.

P.S. I imagine the fish-shaped cakes as being taiyaki:

Photo by Armi Deticio, from this website

Comments

[sovay]

Sphene and Translator Zeiat had spent the last two days in the decade room, playing a game of counters.

That's wonderful.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Have you read the book yet? I loved these two.

(If you haven't, I hope I haven't oversold them.)

[sovay]

Have you read the book yet?

I have indeed; I bought a copy the day it came out. I thought it wasn't due out for days, but the internet was suddenly full of quotations: I walked into Porter Square Books and walked out with Ancillary Mercy. I did not love it as wholeheartedly as most of my friendlist seems to have, but I did not love Ancillary Sword as much as Ancillary Justice, so I think it is something about the construction of the second two books as opposed to the first. The ending surprised me, although I can see how it works.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your feeling about the last two is my feeling for the middle book. But this one leapt back up for me.

ETA: When you say ending, do you mean the statebuilding thing, or the denouement, or... ?

[sovay]

Your feeling about the last two is my feeling for the middle book. But this one leapt back up for me.

Sword and Mercy feel much closer to one another than either does to Justice, to me.

ETA: When you say ending, do you mean the statebuilding thing, or the denouement, or... ?

The deliberate sidelining and avoidance of resolving any of what looked like the major conflicts of the series, like the civil war of Anaander Mianaai. I was not surprised that the Presger were the card up Breq's sleeve, but what she wanted to do with their leverage was not what I had been expecting.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Justice was a unique book, for sure. I don't think there could be any follow-on book that could duplicate that intensity and single-mindedness. Which is not to say that the books that do follow are the only ones that could have, of course...

I liked the way the civil war was handled because the implication is that there will end up being many different resolutions in different parts of Radchaai space, rather than one overarching resolution, and that seemed both like a plausible historical outcome and consonant with the series' politics.

[sovay]

and that seemed both like a plausible historical outcome and consonant with the series' politics.

Fair enough!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like both those!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

very glad!

[greylistening.livejournal.com]

*glee*

I loved their game. It reminded me of Calvin Ball.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely like Calvin Ball!

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I love it! So awesome!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yay! Glad you do. Don't know how far you got in the book, but you'll know this scene when you get to it!