Translation State by Ann Leckie - Book Chat

[@lordofllamas42]

I love Ann Leckie but was comparatively disappointed with this latest addition to the Imperial Radch world. It continued the trend that started with Provenance of a comparatively small, shallow story. I found its gender themes a little heavy-handed, which surprised me, since Leckie handled them with so much elegant subtlety in the Ancillary series.

[@EarnestlyEston]

I think that’s a fair criticism. Like Provenance, the book did feel less “operatic” than the original trilogy. Regarding the gender themes, I sort of picked up on that too. At one point, Qven corrects someone about their pronoun and I thought that was not aligned with how a person would act in this universe - since there is such a diversity of language customs in that regard, not to mention such a diversity of biology, I don’t think people would expect other societies to follow their language rule. I mean everyone was going to get called “she” in the Radch language regardless. It seemed kind of heavy handed making that point. I did enjoy the book very much however. I hope we get some more Presger in the future.