I Read Books: Ancillary Mercy

 

Ancillary Mercy

The third and final book in a trilogy. Breq is an ancillary, a human controlled by an AI, previously an AI that was a ship; the ship got destroyed in what turns out to be a civil war between various versions of the Lord Of The Radch Anaander Mianaai (Ancillary Justice). One version of Anaander sent Breq to be fleet captain of Athoek Station, hoping to keep it out of the hands of the other side(s?) and solve the problems there despite Breq’s hostility to all versions of Anaander. The situation there is complex (Ancillary Sword).

The (worse?) Anaander wants to take back the system. There’s an ancillary onboard the station who pre-dates the Radch conquest, so more than 2000 years old, from a ship that may have opposed Anaander’s assumption of lordship. There’s unrest and ethnic strife, with various officials taking sides. There’s something in the Undergarden that everybody wants. There’s something beyond the ghost gate in another system. There’s a new ambassador from the mysterious alien Presgars, who stopped Anaander’s conquests.

Breq is looking to save the citizens whether they want it or not, though war is coming despite her best efforts. She has to figure out who or what she is. As an AI she’s not human, but on the other hand she is; she sings songs forgotten for hundreds of years, and in one scene it turns out she’s been crying throughout it, but the text never mentions it.

Read This: A messy end to a complicated trilogy, though perhaps neater than might be expected
Don’t Read This: Without the first two, which are, sadly, better