"We have a saying, where I come from: Power requires neither permission nor forgiveness." 
 This book does you no favors, right from start. There's no exposition or neatly packaged backstory; the main character is not used to differentiating between genders and so refers to everyone as "she" or "her"; and to put it mildly, there's little that's familiar with which to ground yourself. You're thrown into a story well in progress, with a history stretching back for thousands of years. 
 I can see why this is a stumbling block; hell, it was for me. I didn't know if I could get past how cold the writing and language choices left me at first. But as I worked through it, I began to like it. By the end, I loved it. More importantly, it excited me! I genuinely feel like this book is offering something different. The last book that made me feel this way was The Wake - not for the same reasons, but my reaction of "trying something new and loving it" is the same. 
 Nowadays, I rarely re-read books. Too many books on the TBR list, not enough time! But I'd bet money that this book would be even better on a second (or third) read-through. I'm trying to convince the husband to read this, and if he gets it back out from the library, I'll probably read it again. There's a lot to think about and puzzle through in this book, layers of meaning and levels of comprehension, and I'm very sure I'd benefit from a second trip to the Radch. 
 This is my choice for this year's reading challenge trilogy, so I hope books 2 and 3 are just as good! I'm looking forward to continuing with the series, that's for sure. 
 2016 reading challenge: a trilogy (1 of 3)