Ann Leckie expands the universe of the Imperial Radch series (first introduced in the best-selling and Hugo-Award winning Ancillary Justice) in her latest novel Translation State. Three entirely separate lives intersect in a story about finding purpose, finding family, and finding out what it means to be human.
We start with Enae Athtur; the book-jacket summary that sie’s on a quest assigned by hir grandmother is a little simplistic. Enae has spent the last five decades taking care of Grandmaman, and is in fact the only member of hir family that isn’t estranged from hir overbearing relative. (Leckie employs at least three different versions of gender-neutral pronouns in this book; Enae uses the Hyde sie/hir, which is a little hard to adjust to, but keeping on your toes about how people identify themselves I think is exactly the point here.) Enae finds out with the rest of hir family members after the funeral that the family legacy is gone, the mansion and title have been bought by a wealthy social climber, and no, nobody’s getting anything in the will. Goodbye, and get out.
Actually, Grandmaman did grudgingly ensure Enae would be “taken care of” as thanks for sacrificing pretty much hir entire life in service to someone who probably used “you never do anything right” in place of “good morning”. The new owner of the Athtur legacy is perfectly prepared to give Enae a generous allowance and a place in the family home, but cheerfully admits that it would be less awkward for everyone if Enae wasn’t underfoot. So…how about a diplomatic position and an assignment traveling the galaxy on a missing-person’s case? A case which, by the way, started two centuries ago.
Honestly, no one cares if you find this person or not. No one expects you to find anything at all. You’re being paid to travel, and maybe look into an old puzzle if you feel like it. Haven’t you ever wanted to leave here?
Sie had always wanted to leave here.
Next up is Reet. Living on Rurusk station, with a perfectly acceptable maintenance job and a loving adopted family, Reet has zero idea who his bio-family was or why he keeps daydreaming about biting people (or worse) when he’s under stress. An exclusive society of people from a persecuted minority offers him the fantasy of any not-quite-happy loner: that he’s never fit in because he might be long lost royalty. Something about the group makes Reet feel like he could actually belong somewhere, but what it really does is bring him to the attention of some very dangerous people.
And then there’s Qven. Qven is what’s known as a Presger Translater, created by a race so far removed from humans that they have to use human DNA to make their own go-betweens in order to communicate. Presgers are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, and only a centuries-old treaty keeps them from slaughtering every non-Presger they come across. Qven is still just a juvenile, but there’s a lot of important Adults looking approvingly at Qven’s progress, so Qven has their future all mapped out for them. And Qven is terrified of what that means and has decided that it’s time to escape.
I’m starting this series cold, having not read any of the previous Imperial Radch books, so I had to hit the ground running as far as understanding the story’s background, the governments, and how vitally important it is that nobody even thinks of doing something that would break the treaty with the Presger. I still found it fairly easy to fall into this universe, with mind-bending technology, complex relationships both between races (human and otherwise) and within families, and a fully-formed history where something that happened hundreds of years ago still has bearing on what happens right now. But it’s how appealing each of the three main characters are that really drew me in. Every one of them are outsiders in their own way, and it was fascinating to watch how they dealt with this reality, and how they change over the course of the story.
Enae starts out utterly shell-shocked at how hir life has irrevocably changed in the space of one day. Leckie somehow makes it both compelling and somehow not at all stressful to see the workings of Enae’s mind as sie comes to grips with this. Maybe it’s the fact that even when bewildered and powerless and possibly homeless, sie still thinks to check to make sure the long-term servants aren’t going to be suddenly out of a job. Or maybe it’s the fact that Enae’s family really is awful, so there’s a kind of guilty pleasure in watching all of their plans for their mansion come to absolutely nothing. In any case, it’s extremely pleasing to see Enae’s initial reaction of “What do I do now” turn to “I…I can do anything I want.” Leaving the house? Taking a luxury space cruise? Buying a shawl? Everything is suddenly possible, up to and including actually trying to solve the mystery that was only supposed to be an excuse to get hir out of Grandmaman’s mansion.
Reet’s story takes longer to get going, but his life is about to change even more drastically than Enae’s. He’s generally solitary, with a few quiet comforts – mostly a favorite snack and watching episodes of Pirate Exiles of the Death Moons in bed – and while his adoptive parents love him dearly, he still has a vague wish to know his origins and find out who his bio-parents were. All of that changes when he’s literally dragged by armed guards out of his room and to a place where he’s told that his life is a lie, and nothing – not his adoptive family or his own desires or his previous status as a human being – matters. And Reet’s initial reaction is pretty much “The hell it doesn’t”, and he doesn’t budge on that for the rest of the book.
“I want to talk to my parents.”
“You have no parents,” said Ambassador Seimet, voice cold and matter-of-fact. “The sooner you realize this, the better.”
Qven’s chapters were my favorite, mostly because their story is all so deliberately and completely alien. Qven’s chapters are also the only ones told in first-person, which means the author can hide all sorts of interesting details by letting the reader assume we know what’s going on, only to get a shock when an outside perspective reveals something extremely odd. (People who have read the previous trilogy may already know what the heck was going on with Translator biology. I didn’t, so it was a fun surprise.) Translators are raised to mimic human behavior without really understanding it, so it’s all training in polite conversation and tea parties and wearing clothes, and meanwhile they regularly murder their classmates and eat them and no one gets in much trouble because, juveniles, am I right?
These chapters were also the darkest, and not just because of the murders. Something happens to Qven as they get nearer adulthood, something Qven witnesses that traumatizes them and makes them want to avoid the whole idea of ever becoming an adult at all. Not wanting to live out their assigned role is frowned upon (and by “frowned upon” I mean “not survivable”), and when Qven tries to escape something worse happens. It’s not quite a sexual assault, but it’s damn similar, and the way Qven is treated afterward is a textbook example of the worst way to treat an assault survivor. The reaction falls somewhere between “Well, what were you wearing?” and “How could you be so careless?” Qven is made to understand that they’re now damaged goods, a disappointment, tainted. So when they’re thrown together with an angry, miserable prisoner, they’re expected to make the best of it. At least until the two of them realize that there’s power to be had in not doing what you’re told.
Three quarters of the book moves at a leisurely pace of travel and diplomatic meetings, punctuated with the occasional shocking revelation or armed-guard overreaction. A violent incident then kicks off the final quarter, and things don’t slow down at all as everyone tries to survive a universe that’s been pulled out of itself and twisted into knots.
There are some drawbacks to not reading the previous books in this universe. I sometimes lost track of the different factions, who was aligned with whom, and what everyone hoped to gain from it. And the reality-bending powers of the Presger usually came as a confusing shock, and I had to just hang on and hope the explanation for what the hell was going on would make sense (which it usually did). There were a few plot elements that didn’t feel like they needed to be there; one character is mis-gendered repeatedly. Blatantly. Consistently. I thought for sure that was leading up to a big revelation. Nothing ever came of it, unless the author was demonstrating how ridiculous and meaningless it is to disregard or outright refuse to acknowledge someone’s identity, especially when it’s something that affects the speaker not at all but is extremely important to the person being spoken to.
The ability to decide for oneself what their identify and purpose is comes up again and again, along with the importance of found families and claiming a place to belong that doesn’t depend on just DNA and biology. There’s also a very satisfying daydream here of finding that one person who both understands what you’re feeling (even if they have zero frame of reference for it), and wants what you want that will make you happy and safe. Especially if what you want is the exotic experience of making a fort out of pillows and watching TV in each other’s arms.