Athoek Station and its discontents

[bloodygranuaile]

It’s a long weekend and that means I had time to sit around and reread Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword, the second book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. In this one, the cast of characters expands dramatically, as our lone wolf AI heroine Breq gets put in charge of a ship, Mercy of Kalr, which is a little awkward given that Breq used to be a ship. On orders from one of the factions of Anaander Mianaai, Fleet Captain Breq goes to Athoek System–which consists mostly of the tea-growing planet Athoek and the associated Athoek Station–to secure it, and Lieutenant Awn’s sister, from the depredations of the civil war that’s broken out. Having been given a big pile of resources–military authority, the house name Mianaai, a ship, officers, a crew, and a bunch of access codes–Breq descends upon Athoek Station and starts aggressively inserting herself into a fixing everyone’s problems, to the great consternation of the people who liked it when those other people had problems. A lot of station politics happen, sometimes violently, and new factions come into play–or, more often, are uncovered as having already been in play. The lieutenants all have personal problems, two of them with each other. It’s all very fun.