Narrator Adjoah Andoh creates a stunning tapestry of characters within the vast galaxy this audiobook spans. Her theater background allows her to give distinctive timbres and accents to every character, which helps to keep the large cast and complex story straight. Ingray Aughskold starts out as a young woman who is quite unsure of herself and her place in the world, but by the end of the story she knows exactly who she is and what she wants. Andoh is utterly convincing as Ingray blossoms into a confident, self-assured individual. While this novel is set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series, it is a stand-alone that can be enjoyed on its own merits. K.M.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

…[Provenance] stands well as a sort of thematic coda to the Radch trilogy, and should please those who like tea with their space opera.

07/31/2017
Hugo- and Nebula-winner Leckie returns to the universe of her bestselling Imperial Radch trilogy with this standalone SF thriller styled as a space opera of manners. Ingray Aughskold is determined to outdo her conniving brother and impress their demanding mother enough to be named her heir, even if that means gambling everything Ingray has. She leaves her home planet to break a famous thief out of prison and get help in a scheme to blackmail her mother’s primary political opponent. But when the person she retrieves denies being the person she wants, her rash plan starts to fall apart. Matters are made worse by the fanatical pursuit of the distressingly odd ambassador of the alien Geck. Though full of the charm and wit characterizing Leckie’s other works, including delightful appearances by a Radch ambassador and tantalizing hints about the upcoming conclave, this novel nevertheless doesn’t quite have the depth and richness Leckie fans might expect. It’s primarily an optimistic coming-of-age story, and it stumbles on some false promises along the way. (Sept.)

"There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who ever could."—John Scalzi

"More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love."—Kirkus

"Character-centered space opera from one of SF's brightest stars."—Library Journal

"A perfect follow-up to the trilogy."—The New York Times

"The trademarks of Leckie's talent are on display, with even more worlds for readers to discover and some teasing overlap with her previous series. But what makes this book is watching Ingray overcome her poor self-esteem and discover who she actually wants to be, demonstrating again the genre's capacity to tell compelling, human stories."—RT Book Reviews

"The intricacies and oddities are a delight.... A thrill for fans of heists and capers."—Washington Post

"A careful look at how no one's immune from politics, even if they think themselves outside the fray . . . A story about the necessity of exploring the edges of the known."—NPR

"An entertaining, thoughtful, and clever entry that both Leckie's new and returning readers can delve into and enjoy."—The Los Angeles Review of Books

"[Leckie] raises provocative questions about identity, family and self-esteem. By the end, both neophytes and longtime Leckie fans are likely to be pleased."—The San Francisco Chronicle

"The trappings of widescreen sci-fi, and the attention to character, to the small moments, to the inner lives of those living through outsized events . . . Just read it."—B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog

"Complex and beautiful."—SYFY Wire

"If you don't know the Ancillary series by now, you probably should. Ann Leckie's sociopolitical space opera almost singlehandedly breathed new cool into the stereotype of spaceships trundling through far-off systems amid laser battles. ... [Ancillary Mercy] earns the credit it's received: As a capstone to a series that shook genre expectations, as our closing installment of an immersively realized world, and as the poignant story of a ship that learned to sing."—NPR Books on Ancillary Mercy

"This trilogy will stand as a classic of SF for the ages."—Library Journal on Ancillary Mercy

"Powerful."—The New York Times on Ancillary Sword

"The sort of space opera audiences have been waiting for."—NPR Books on Ancillary Sword

"No science-fiction series as descriptive of our current political and cultural moment or as insistent that we open our eyes to it."—Slate on Ancillary Mercy

"A gripping read, with top-notch world building and a set of rich subtexts about human rights, colonialism — and (yes) hive mind sex."—io9 on Ancillary Sword

"Leckie investigates what it means to be human, to be an individual and to live in a civilized society."—Scientific American on Ancillary Sword

08/01/2017
In a bid finally to win the attention and approval of her politician mother, Ingray arranges to smuggle Pahlad Budrakim, heir to one of her mother's rivals, out of the prison planet known as Compassionate Removal. From the start, things don't go as planned. After a tense encounter with the alien Geck, Ingray manages to return her charge back home to Hwae, but the two are entangled in a murder investigation when a visiting diplomat from the Omkem people is killed in their company. While there are references to elements from Leckie's "Ancillary" books, the action focuses on Ingray, who wants her foster mother's love but fears her scheming brother will forever be the favorite. VERDICT Following up her magnificent "Ancillary" trilogy, Leckie wisely moves to a different area of the same universe, showing that she is still interested in nonbinary ideas of gender in this latest character-centered space opera from one of sf's brightest stars.—MM

Narrator Adjoah Andoh creates a stunning tapestry of characters within the vast galaxy this audiobook spans. Her theater background allows her to give distinctive timbres and accents to every character, which helps to keep the large cast and complex story straight. Ingray Aughskold starts out as a young woman who is quite unsure of herself and her place in the world, but by the end of the story she knows exactly who she is and what she wants. Andoh is utterly convincing as Ingray blossoms into a confident, self-assured individual. While this novel is set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series, it is a stand-alone that can be enjoyed on its own merits. K.M.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

2017-07-17
A woman seeking the approval of her foster mother takes a desperate gamble and finds herself in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy.To help her foster mother, Netano, shame a political rival, Ingray Aughskold of the planet Hwae bribes a broker to smuggle the notorious Pahlad Budrakim out of prison, hoping that Pahlad will reveal the location of the valuable family antiques e stole. (Pahlad is a "neman," a gender using the pronouns e/eir/em.) This supposedly simple plan soon gets complicated thanks to Ingray's scheming foster brother, Danach, a neighboring planetary government that frames Pahlad for murder, an alien ambassador with a persistent interest in Ingray and her associates...and the fact that Pahlad never stole the antiques in the first place. Setting her new novel in the same universe as her previous books (Ancillary Mercy, 2015, etc.), Leckie again uses large-scale worldbuilding to tell a deeply personal story—in this case, to explore what binds children to their families. As always, she impels the reader to consider the power language, and specifically names, has to shape perception and reality. The title is meaningful in several senses. "Provenance" initially refers to vestiges, the antiques so highly valued on Hwae, many of which are probably fakes; but more importantly, it means the struggle to understand where people come from and how it made them what they are, how they will define themselves now, and what labels they will choose to bear going forward. In aid of that point, a deeper look into the relationship between Ingray and Netano might have strengthened the book, and so might evidence of Danach's much-discussed political ability—all we see from him are smugness and petulance, while Ingray demonstrates far more political adeptness. But since the novel is told from Ingray's perspective, which is that of a woman with poor self-esteem discovering her confidence and true worth, Danach may not have been all that brilliant to begin with. More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love.