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Ann Leckie has published short stories in Subterranean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story "Hesperia and Glory" was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition edited by Rich Horton. Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, children, and cats.
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Marion chats with Ann Leckie
In 2013, Ann Leckie published Ancillary Justice, the first book in her RADCH EMPIRE series. The book swept the 2014 awards, garnering a Nebula, an Arthur C Clarke and a Hugo award for best novel. In 2014, Leckie followed it up with Ancillary Sword, and the final book of the trilogy, Ancillary Mercy, came out this October, and landed on the New York Times best-seller list. Leckie keeps a busy schedule with writing, book promotion, managing a family, and occasionally beading. She took a few minutes out of her day to chat about Ancillary Mercy, distributed consciousness and working on a surveying crew. One commente... Read More
November 10th, 2015. Marion Deeds | Ann Leckie | Author Interviews, Feature, Giveaway! | 18 comments
Ancillary Justice: An excellent debut!
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Breq used to be a spaceship, or at least a fragment of the spaceship known as Justice of Toren. The ship controlled innumerable human bodies, known variously as "ancillaries" to the people of the interstellar Radchaai Empire and as "corpse soldiers" to the cultures and planets the Empire has conquered. Those soldiers used to be regular, innocent human beings who, if sufficiently healthy, were slaved to one of the Radchaai ships, their personalities more or less overwritten to become part of one of the Empire's many-bodied artificial intelligences.
But note: Breq "used" to be a spaceship. Now, she is just Breq, a single person with one body, but with memories of being both an immensely powerful artificial intelligence and its army of soldiers. When we meet Breq, at the start of Ancillary Justice, the spectacular debut novel by Ann Leckie, she is hunting for a gun — a... Read More
February 17th, 2016. Stefan Raets (RETIRED), Marion Deeds and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4.5 | Ann Leckie | BSFA Award, Hugo Award, Nebula Award | SFF Reviews | 17 comments
Ancillary Sword: Mixed opinions
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
In Ancillary Justice, Leckie's award-sweeping 2013 novel, we met Breq. Breq was a soldier, but before she was a soldier, she had been a ship, the Justice of Toren. Specifically, Breq was an ancillary, a human body whose personality has been erased, so that she could be a node of awareness for the ship's AI. Justice of Toren comprised the ship itself and 2,000 human ancillaries in a distributed network. When Justice of Toren was destroyed in an act of treachery, only one ancillary, who was offline, survived: Breq. Ancillary Sword, which continues Breq's adventures, hits a solid home run.
Breq's search for vengeance in Ancillary Justice led her to the ruler of the vast, millennia-old Radch Empire, Anaander Mianaai, and to the discovery of a clandestine civil war. One faction in this battle fe... Read More
February 24th, 2016. Marion Deeds and Stuart Starosta | Ann Leckie | BSFA Award | SFF Reviews | 8 comments
Ancillary Mercy: Marion loves it. Stuart doesn't.
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
I loved Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword, but as I got to the end of Ancillary Sword, I began to have some doubts. As good as the books were, and as good as Ann Leckie is, I didn't see how she could possibly wrap up such an elaborate story. I should have had more faith! Ancillary Mercy completes Breq's tale, resolves the story of the intelligent Ships and tells a bit more about what's beyond the Ghost Gate, all without leaving the Athoek system or even Athoek Station, where the bulk of the story takes place.
Ancillary Mercy picks up days or maybe hours after the ending of Ancillary Sword, when Breq gets some bad news via her Ship; The Lord of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, or a faction of her, has taken the Tstur system. I... Read More
February 26th, 2016. Marion Deeds and Stuart Starosta | Ann Leckie | SFF Reviews | 9 comments
Provenance: A coming-of-age tale blended with a murder semi-mystery
Provenance by Ann Leckie
Whether you've read Ann Leckie's IMPERIAL RADCH trilogy or not (though I highly recommend you do, as it's excellent), there's plenty to enjoy about Provenance (2017), a new and stand-alone novel set within the reaches of Radchaai space. The Empire-shifting events of Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy have an effect on the political schemes in progress within Provenance, but the primary focus is on generations-old systems set deeply in place withi... Read More
November 21st, 2017. Jana Nyman, Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Ann Leckie | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 comments
The Raven Tower: Intelligent, thoughtful, and visceral
Reposting to include Marion's new review.
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
The Raven Tower (2019) begins, as so many fantasy tales do, with a young man returning home to claim the powerful title and honor which are his birthright. Upon his arrival, he discovers that his father has gone missing and is presumed dead, while his uncle has taken the seat of power for himself with the promise that it will be given over to the young man when the time is deemed to be right (with the implicit understanding that the uncle will never do so). The young man then sets about proving his uncle's perfidy and setting the countryside back to its normal state of affairs with the help of a few trusted friends. Despite much hardship and sacrifice, the young man succeeds in usurping the usurper, titles and honor are bestowed upon him, and everyone lives happily ever after, right? Right.
Except Read More
June 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Ann Leckie | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews, We Love This! | 10 comments
Magazine Monday: The Magazine That Would Not Die
In 2009, fans of Realms of Fantasy, a full-size slick magazine, were dismayed to learn that its publisher, Sovereign Media, was shutting it down. Just not enough subscribers, Sovereign said; we can't afford to keep going. But a savior came along in the form of Publisher Warren Lapine of Tir Na Nog Press, who purchased the magazine and kept it going with the same wonderful staff (including long-time editor Shawna McCarthy). Readers were delighted. Magazines are hardly ever saved, and even if they're revived years later, they're normally only shadows of their former selves. It was great to know that Realms of Fantasy would continue publishing. I'm sure I wasn't the only hopeful who started writing stories in the sincere belief that someday I'd see my name on the Realms of Fantasy cover.
But things st... Read More
January 17th, 2011. Terry Weyna | Ann Leckie, Dennis Danvers, Jay Lake, Rachel Swirsky | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments
Magazine Monday: Uncanny Magazine, Issues One and Two
Uncanny Magazine is a new bimonthly internet publication edited by Lynn M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas. The editors have explained their mission this way:
We chose the name Uncanny because we wanted a publication that has the feel of a contemporary magazine with a history — one that evolved from a fantastic pulp. Uncanny will bring the excitement and possibilities of the past, and the sensibilities and experimentation that the best of the present offers. . . . It's our goal that Uncanny's pages will be filled with gorgeous prose, exciting ideas, provocative essays, and contributors from every possible background.
Issue One opens with "If You Were a Tiger, I'd Have to Wear White" by Maria Dahvana Headley, in which the animal stars of movies and television have personalities, hopes, wi... Read More
January 26th, 2015. Terry Weyna | Ann Leckie, Jay Lake, Jim C. Hines, Ken Liu, Maria Dahvana Headley, Max Gladstone, Neil Gaiman, Richard Bowes | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment
Magazine Monday: Forever Magazine, Issues 1-3
Forever Magazine is a new venture by Neil Clarke, editor of the esteemed Clarkesworld. He explains in the introduction to the first issue of the magazine that it is a monthly publication focused on previously published works, mostly from this (still new) century. Clarke is the entire staff of the magazine. The Kindle subscription price is currently $1.99 per month.
The first issue opens extremely well, with a novelette by Ken Liu, "The Regular," about a serial killer who targets high-end prostitutes. Ruth is a freelance detective who is hired by the mothe... Read More
April 20th, 2015. Terry Weyna | Ann Leckie, Genevieve Valentine, Karl Schroeder, Ken Liu, Lauren Beukes, Tobias Buckell | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments