Jaelyn reviewed The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Review of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
Breq was once part of a huge ship’s AI, linking the ship to thousands of “Ancillaries”, captured peoples turned into soldiers controlled by the AI. After a betrayal from the highest levels destroyed the ship, Breq is just one fragment of her former self. 1000 years later, she plans on revenge before she comes across Seivarden, a former lieutenant on her ship suspended all this time.
I heard this mentioned often in comparison to other books so I decided to check it out. The narrative jumps between future Breq and her quest for justice, dealing with a drug-addicted depressed Seivarden; and the past where the events of an annexed planet lead to her destruction.
It covers a decent amount of Breq and the world-building as a whole for one book, with cultural shifts over time, the diversity within a splintered AI and the expansionism of the state. The main culture’s …
Breq was once part of a huge ship’s AI, linking the ship to thousands of “Ancillaries”, captured peoples turned into soldiers controlled by the AI. After a betrayal from the highest levels destroyed the ship, Breq is just one fragment of her former self. 1000 years later, she plans on revenge before she comes across Seivarden, a former lieutenant on her ship suspended all this time.
I heard this mentioned often in comparison to other books so I decided to check it out. The narrative jumps between future Breq and her quest for justice, dealing with a drug-addicted depressed Seivarden; and the past where the events of an annexed planet lead to her destruction.
It covers a decent amount of Breq and the world-building as a whole for one book, with cultural shifts over time, the diversity within a splintered AI and the expansionism of the state. The main culture’s language is also ungendered, so for the books’s POV and any characters from that culture use she/her for everyone with Breq occasionally getting mixed up in misgendering a species in their native tongue - being confused by all the different social cues each culture uses to determine it. That adds an interesting cultural spanner into the narrative as you learn about the characters.