Ancillary Justice

A good piece of space opera with an interesting setting, as well as a decent revenge plot at the heart of it. Much of the book flips back and forth between the “present” and the backstory, revealing the central character's motives as we go - I often find this annoying, but in this case, it worked perfectly, adding to the story rather than diluting it.

The most notable feature, of course, is that, since the book is ostensibly being translated from a language that has no concept of gender (something the central character also struggles with) it uses the feminine form throughout. That's most obviously the pronouns, although it extends to words like “niece” and “sister” as well, so that we have no idea of the biological sex of the great majority of the characters. This feels like something of a contrivance, although I got used to it after a while, and there's an in-world reason, so it's fine by me.