4 June 2016

Review: Ancillary Mercy

Ancillary Mercy Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am both incredibly happy and incredibly unsatisfied with the ending of this book, which is as I understand it, also the ending of the trilogy.

Incredibly happy because the book had no boring sections for the most part. From very early on the stakes were high. Things happened an kept happening and there hardly any navel-gazing. To me, at least, it felt like it gathered the very best from the first and the second instalments and condensed it into a third book, all the while doing away with the few parts that felt plodding in Ancillary Sword. It also had me laughing a surprising lot, more than either of the previous books, really, all the while without devolving into a funny or comical story or ruining the more serious aspects of it, which to me is quite a feat in itself.

Incredibly unsatisfied because I disliked the manner in which the book ended. I mean, Breq herself acknowledges that there are no real endings, and in some ways it suits the story just fine. Or at least, it fits a few themes in the story (It never was a grand, world-ending cataclysmic epic, after all, no matter how much material it seemed to have for that.) (view spoiler)

I wonder if I am alone in feeling like this. In any case, the immediately above is not enough to deter me from giving the book a well-deserved four stars, that could have easily been five, but alas.

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