Ancillary Sword

It was always going to be a hard act to folllow Ancilliary Justice, the first book in this trilogy. It introduced us to ships neurally connected to troops of humans taken as slaves on worlds conquered conquered by the military race, the Radch, killed and enhanced with AI to become the military crew or 'ancillaries'. Breq was one such ancillary, part of the ship 'The Justice of Toren', but now she is alone, having lost her officers, crew and ship in the previous book. The Lord of the Radch, Anaander Miaanai, is made up of many separate entities and a fight within factions has resulted in her being at war with herself. Breq has been given command of her own ship by the side of Anaander Miaanai that she trusts and sent to the planet of Atheok.

This is a much simpler, linear plot than in the previous book, told only from Breq's point of view, but nevertheless there is much going on. Breq struggles to cope with the idea of command as a single unit and also finds she has a spy planted on her ship. On Atheok she discovers some serious inequalities and irregularities on this planet supposedly civilised by the Radch and a plot to dispose of her.

It's not clear where this story is going at this stage but I'm hoping the final book in the trilogy (Ancilliary Mercy) will be as good as the first and be a fitting conclusion.