Reviews and Comments

A very readable memoir that is often scathing about the culture of hospitality especially around misogyny but around working conditions too. Everything from sick pay, working hours, safety in the workplace, bullying, the allocation of service charges presents a picture of an industry with a massive problem.

Even the lack of a decent learning culture seems insane, cooks are forced to learn how to cook by making countless mistakes and wasting expensive ingredients instead of being the responsibility of senior chefs to explain and help introduce new starters to the food.

There is also an angry aside on the failure in 2020 to have a joined up policy for hospitality with people being encouraged to avoid socialising before the furlough scheme was in place.

The book does have a love of food and a good night but the bigger picture of an industry in desperate need of change and for the relationship between diners and those who serve them to be reset.

As the title suggests the intriguing part of this novella is about origins and authenticity. The precipitating event is an attempt to discover the truth about a forgery but from there the action blooms into the political conflicts between solar systems and their cultures.

The central character is good hearted, self-deprecating, often bumbling and subject to deus ex machina. The central plot is a straight-forward romance bordering on comedy. However they are a reasonable point of view character into another part of the Radch universe and its is interesting to see the perspective of cultures that were mostly being obliterated and assimilated before. The smaller scale provides a richer sense of place.

I had read the other books before and enjoyed the new perspective of the consequences of the original trilogy but I think it stands alone and the references to the wider universe are more fun for fans than necessary to enjoy this story.

I really loved Ancillary Justice and while it ended on an open note I felt the tone shift from the first book's renegades on the fringes of the empire to being at the heart of the empire's governance here was hard to adjust to.

Although there's a conspiracy, a murder, the backdrop of civil war and a mysterious jump gate much of the second half of the book is taken up my musings on the nature of justice and the relationship between the empire, the representatives of its immortal emperor and the citizens of the empire.

The action shifts to a planet and its attendant space station, much of the action revolves around the growing and harvesting of tea. Around halfway through I felt the pace had slowed down to the point where I felt I was enjoying the writing in terms of the scene setting and the world building around the politics within the empire.

While the conclusion accelerates back up with a bomb and a shootout it still has a cliffhanger with much in the background plot unresolved and to be honest not a lot of progress on the concept of just and honourable behaviour within the Radch. Unlike the first book though the idea that the conclusion of this book is just a stepping stone into the conclusion of the trilogy feels easier to me.