Provenance

C’est peut-être dur de comparer Provenance à la trilogie du Radch impérial, mais c’est ce que je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de faire. Provenance n’est pas désagréable à lire, le problème est qu’il ne s’y passe pas grand-chose. Pas strictement en termes d’action — pleins de choses arrivent dans Provenance — mais en termes d’action qui laisse une impression. Provenance raconte des humains (et quelques non-humains) qui ont une histoire, des problèmes, des enjeux personnels, et les péripéties qu’ils vivent. Somme toute le côté SF de ce roman est accessoire, il ne sert qu’à mettre en guise de décor une culture exotique, que ce soit en termes de cellules familiales ou de genre.

Il est difficile de ne pas comparer ça à la trilogie qui précède où l’univers, loin d’être un décor, semble être le cœur. Bien sûr, cette trilogie raconte l’histoire d’individualités, mais ces individualités se définissent par leur lutte au sein d’une société totalitaire à la fois effrayante et fascinante, ou par leur nature même (d’IA). Les romans introduisent et existent par un ensemble d’idées philosophiques qui, pour moi, font son caractère fascinant.

En tant que lecteur, je suis donc un peu déçu, même si je reste à ma place de lecteur — je n’aurais pas pu écrire un roman à moitié aussi bon que Provenance. J’ai un souvenir indélébile des premiers romans d’Ann Leckie, mais je ne sais pas si cela tient avant tout à mes obsessions personnelles ou bien à une qualité propre à ceux-ci. En tout cas, j’espère que le miracle se reproduira avec Translation State qui devrait sortir cette année.

Should I be controversial? I'm going to be controversial. Ann Leckie is the best sci-fi author of the past two decades. Am I well rounded in sci-fi authors of the past two decades? No. But being uninformed won't stop me from sharing my opinion!

Provenance is the culmination of the best parts of the Ancillary trilogy. Political intrigue, fantastic world building, expertly woven exposition, complex characters and motivations... it's all there. Leckie is very much comparable to Le Guin in that her best sci-fi stories are not overly packed with action sequences or even adventure, but rather espionage, diplomacy, and complex politics. It makes the universe she has built feel alive and dynamic.

As usual, this story is jam packed with allegory. From land ownership claims, gender identity, deadnaming, and the constitution, this book truly has it all. However, I never felt like any of these parallels were too shallow or not developed fully.

If there's only one criticism I can think of (which is the case for Ancillary as well), it's that her characters are generally without flaw. The good characters are always the heroes that often know exactly what to do or what to say in the moment and they usually have little development over the course of the story. They're so easily... lovable. But, this is something I can look over because because I want to, so there.

This is a very clever book about identity. Nothing is quite what it seems to be, people and things are constantly confused with each other, and even the social structures and traditions seem to muddy the waters. The plot itself is ultimately a fun coming of age story but it's all of the diversions and sidetracks that makes the book interesting. There is also some interesting use of ungendered pronouns the rules of which I didn't quite pick up but was nice flavour. I think it's cleverness might have gotten in the way of telling a tighter, more engaging story, but it's still an interesting read.

There isn't any good tea in this book. Apart from that, there's very little to complain. The main character is lovable, and somewhat naive, but you just have to wish her well from the start. The cast of side characters are great, too, my favorite being Tic, who is sometimes almost Zeiat levels of funny.

There are hardly any Radchaai in this, but we learn a lot about the Geck, who are an impossibly weird alien race, and the treaty with the Presger, hinted at in the Ancillary books, is front and center.

In the Ancillary series Leckie thrilled me with amazing world building, even though I was not as amazed by the second and third books of the trilogy as I was with the first. She also left me wanting to know what happens next and to know more about the many more or less peripheral mysteries that pop up. Will the AIs be accepted into the treaty ruling the interactions between humans and the known spacefaring aliens? And who are these spacefaring aliens really?

In provenance we are back in that universe, but outside Radch space. We get new human cultures, new human motivations, and I got some of what I wanted after finishing the Ancillary books. I can't tell you what though, that would be a spoiler.

Personally I like this better than the second and third Ancillary book, but not quite as much as the first. Still it was a "one weekend read", so it definitely deserves the full five stars.

Intriguing and thoughtful, but doesn't exactly churn forward, laden as it is with extensive talk of diplomacy, treaties, and ancestry.

Bit tedious. Doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, space opera, detective, action or political intrigue.

Hmmmmm I dunno. I liked the Imperial Radch trilogy so much but this one was just kinda meh. Aside from nb folks / gender-neutral pronouns being a thing (cool!) and taking place in the same universe as the prior trilogy, I found the political nuances hard to follow, the plot meandering, and the main character an annoyingly passive nothing (she seriously spends the whole book crying a lot and saying/doing things without realizing she was about to say/do them, but then the things always turn out to be the right things to have said/done, which as a narrative trick gets old pretty fast). It's hard to stay interested in someone who lets the whole story pretty much happen to them and can't really explain/examine their own motives for things.

I loved [b: Ancillary Justice|17333324|Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)|Ann Leckie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397215917s/17333324.jpg|24064628] and recommended it left and right so if you like AJ you'll probably like this one which is set in the same universe - different corner, new characters, same-but-different-pronoun-shuffle.

In this corner of the universe there's a set of three star-systems the Omkem, Hwae and Tyr that are at slight (as in not war) odds with each other. Ingray is the foster daughter of Netano Aughskold an influential politician of Hwae. On a quest to impress Netano, Ingray travels to Tyr on a mysterious errand that goes off the rails about right from the start.

This is a tale of lies, politics, growing up and of how we define who we are. On Hwae people define themselves by their connection to history through vestiges (we'd call them souvenirs or mementos) they collect signed cards from important events or people to prove their own importance. The Omkem who need access to Hwae to get to the rich trading system of Tyr, dispute Hwae'en history. And maybe just maybe a lot of the most famous "vestiges" aren't quite what they seem.

With the odds stacked against her, in a society codified in ways that may be strange to us Earthlings, Ingray navigates this at times convoluted plot despite a strong case of impostor syndrome. Along the way she finds unexpected love, allies and aliens...

This story deepens our window into the world outside of the Radch empire and gives clues to at least one of the alien races that are part of the big treaty with the Presger: the Geck. The world building is fantastic and Ingray is a protagonist I loved to read, persisting despite her own misgivings against her family, and even the whole of her planet.

While I liked the use of only female pronouns in the Radch trilogy, here it gets much more complicated. Sometimes normal pronouns are used and sometimes gender-hiding abbreviations "E", "Eir" "Em" ... I never figured out the actual significance of when Ingray used which pronoun. Also I really dislike stuff I have trouble pronouncing in my head. So the pronouns and the Hwae and the Omkem didn't help.

So should you read this? If you're a fan of this universe already and want more of it: go. If you haven't read [b: Ancillary Justice|17333324|Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)|Ann Leckie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397215917s/17333324.jpg|24064628] and its sequels start there.

Quite different than the "Ancillary" books (which I also loved). It is set in the same universe, but among the people of the Hwae planet, and it's actual a mystery. And I love mysteries, so what could be better?

Our protagonist, Ingray Aughskold, is the daughter of a very powerful politician. She's young, insecure, and she's trying to do something audacious to win her mother's approval. I liked her, I was captivated by the mystery, and on the edge of my seat to see how she'd pull off the dramatic events at the end.

Highly recommended.