Translation State

Another banger from the science fiction (and fantasy) powerhouse that is Ann Leckie. Translation state is an exhilarating ride filled with political intrigue, complex human-alien dynamics, and a sprinkling of body horror. It's more of a departure from the other installments in the Imperial Radch universe, but it still feels like a natural progression in unveiling the fascinating universe Leckie has built.

In Translation State, we follow three perspectives. Enae is the grandchild of an immensely powerful, and bitter woman who ended up dying and leaving no one in her sprawling family anything, and in fact, it was revealed she had no money at all, but an unknown benefactor was left to manage the estate. Enae was the only family member who was to receive anything, which was an allowance and an assignment: find a suspected alien fugitive that went missing 200 years ago. Reet is a 30 something year old mechanic living on a station who knows little about his background given that he was adopted. After meeting an ethnic social club who insists he is a descendant of their long lost leaders, he's thrust into the middle of an active rebellion, but he's having some physiological anomalies popping up that cast doubt on his true heritage, and why has he fantasized about eating humans his entire life? Qven is... something else entirely, a juvenile Presger Translator. The Presger are an extremely secretive and powerful alien empire that has entered into a necessary treaty with the other empires given how deadly and alien they are. To negotiate the terms of this treaty, the Presger created an entirely new species, the Presger Translators, who interact and negotiate with the other species. But even though they look human, they are odd and often dangerous, particularly the juveniles who engage in an almost insect-like upbringing filled with cannibalism, body horror, and the necessary ceremony of "merging" which involves integrating with another individual else they die entirely. After a merging incident, Qven is thrust into a tenuous position among the Presegr Translators with very few options and very little time before they die.

Each of these stories weave into a very interesting overall narrative filled with intrigue and action alike. There were some aspects of the story I liked more than others, and those familiar with some of Leckie's standalone works might agree that her endings often feel a bit rushed and ill-thought out, but the entire journey to the end of the book was fantastic. The short chapters and consistent cycle of POVs made this very easy to binge, and I hardly ever felt like any POV outshone another. Character wise, this had a large cast of characters, and while some of the smaller characters blended together, overall I found the main characters to be interesting and likeable, but I had some issues with each of their character development arcs.

While all of Ann Leckie's books have been character focused, I think Translation State was a more concerted attempt at being relationship focused, and for a few reasons, I don't think it was wholly successful in telling a relationship focused story. As the story progressed, Enae seemed to take a backseat to the overall plot, making me question why they were still involved by the end, despite the narrative desperately trying to justify their importance to a story that has clearly left them behind. As Qven and Reet became the main focus, I was disappointed in how their relationship developed. The political intrigue was fascinating, but I can't help but feel that I was constantly pulled out of the meat of the story and Qven's interesting, alien experience as a Presger Translator child to watch them become like an.. UwU I want to cuddle and eat dumplings and watch tv all day every day. Like.. their arc towards the end of the book was so disappointing, it affected my perception of the entire story.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare this to Ancillary, The Raven King, or Provenance when it should be judged on its own merit, and even though it was a good story, I was really hoping for so much more because I have come to expect the best from the author. But regardless, this was a good book. If you are a fan of any of Leckie's works, Martha Wells, Becky Chambers, or even James S.A. Corey books, I think you'll really like this.

I hadn't heard that this one was coming until it appeared, and it was a delightful surprise. To my mind Leckie is the greatest producer of space opera since Iain M. Banks. In some ways this book was the most like a Culture novel to date, but it's an injustice to discuss her work just by comparison.

The story, which cycles through three points of view, wrestles with the slippery, dynamic notions of boundaries, relationships, and identities. These three things are part and parcel of one another - you cannot have one without the others. We cannot systematise these things, but only live through them and work at them, rather than fix and determine them for good. The whole story is a process of grappling with that fact.

Most of the characters are pleasant and sympathetic. This is refreshing in a field which, to this reader at least, so often makes a virtue of cynicism. That's not to say they don't have their flaws, nor are they entirely unproblematic, but they are not out to wow you with how gritty and uncompromisingly grim they are.

Leckie is brilliant.

I think the part of this book that I enjoyed the most was the worldbuilding dive into Presger Translators, as this is the first character with this POV. In previous books, Dlique and Zeiat both are wild characters who felt like comic relief foils compared to the over-serious Radchaai. So much of all of their nonsense along with various other mysteries get some partial explanation here. It's delightful to go back and rethink parts of previous books and have at least a slightly better understanding of what's going on. I'm not even sure that I need to know anything about the Presger at this point; I think I enjoy enough all of the wrangling in their ominous shadows.

It is definitely a wild narrative turn to have this POV though. There is a lot of body horror and casual violence going on that is treated very normally by all of the characters. It worked for me, and put a lot of the Presger Translator behavior into context, but it was also a surprising change of tone.

I enjoyed all of the characters on their own individually, but I feel like in some ways there wasn't quite enough meat on the rest of the story. It's hard for me to really put my finger on it, but if I had to pin it down to one piece, it's that I feel like Enae felt like the third wheel. Enae is handed hir investigation that nobody wants solved and the answer to a two-hundred year problem just appears right before hir. If anything, sie mostly just seems like support for Reet. I would have also wanted some more local politics or repercussions for Enae actually making progress on an investigation that some people probably didn't want solved in the end?

At any rate, in Ancillary Mercy, Provenance, and now Translation State it feels like there's a very consistent theme in this universe on the question of what makes something a Significant Species as well as legal shenanigans of how to determine who gets to be part of which species. The conclave continues and continues to come up, and I am really excited for the potential of some space politics / legal theater book wrangling all of these pieces together.