Ancillary Mercy

If this review had a title, it would be “too much tea.” There is way too much in this final book about drinking tea, and hurt feelings, and which officer is upset about how someone was mean to them, or what have you. Things finally pick up about a 1/3 of the way through and we get some slightly interesting stuff, about the nature of AIs in general and more on the bigger story of the Emperor of the Radch, etc.

Still, after book #2 was such a small story compared to #1, this one feels only slightly bigger. There's a big galactic story happening, and Leckie is choosing to focus only on a tiny part of it. It's somewhat interesting, but this is a disappointment compared to #1.

In contrast, the Expanse novels keep getting more interesting as they continue (and expand, if you will, in scope.)

So, this was fine but really overall neither this nor Ancillary Sword was as good as Ancillary Justice.