Translation State

"Yes. As well as getting nominated for both lists, Leckie won the ‘best series’ Hugo for the Imperial Radch trilogy – and Translation State takes place in the same universe. So she has received a lot of well-deserved accolades here. You can tell, as you read Translation State, that you’re in a richly developed universe. There’s subtly drawn political intrigue between multiple groups, not easily reducible to the good and the bad. There are social complexities too, notably the highly developed pronoun vocabulary required to cover the gender concepts of the different species and societies. This latest book reflects the outcomes of political decisions made in the trilogy, so the world has a sense of history too. Translation State is totally self-contained. You are following three stories, which gradually become one – a diplomat investigating a fugitive, an ‘every man’ character of importantly-uncertain heritage, and a truly alien character who is being raised in a strange colony of even-stranger children, all destined for ‘matching’. What is matching? Why do these children eat each other, and why does no one seem to mind? Leckie reveals information at a masterfully controlled pace, keeping the reader curious. It’s this curiosity, and mortal fear for the characters, that keep the pages turning. But Leckie is the rare author that can spin a page-turning plot and build a truly interesting world . Two characters wish to declare themselves legally human, and must explore what it means; untranslatable cultural differences abound; readers are confronted with the idea of merging minds to form new identities. There’s lots to think about."

"Again we have three narrators, but this time their stories are interwoven. Enae is given a diplomatic mission to find a fugitive’s descendent, which no one expects hir—the novel develops its own rich system of pronouns—to fulfil. Reet is an ordinary labourer who finds himself unexpectedly caught up in embassy work and becomes Enae’s minder; his genetic history is unknown, and competing groups lay claim to him over the course of the story. Qven is growing up in the most alien world of this universe, a mysterious place where children are raised in groups, progress through bizarre developmental stages, and eat each other regularly. Those who survive are intended for an uncertain service – which becomes gradually clearer as the novel progresses. Leckie perfectly balances the drip feed of information. She withholds enough to let curiosity drive your reading; she keeps revealing enough to satisfy. Crucially, you want to understand the world better in order to know whether your beloved characters – and these characters are highly loveable – are going to be alright: what exactly are they caught up in, here? Plot development and world building , then, are cleverly tied together. This novel takes place in the Imperial Radch universe, alongside the Imperial Radch trilogy and two short stories, but it is self-contained. For readers of the trilogy, the political ramifications of the earlier books can be spotted here. It’s a great all-rounder: Berkeley Fiction Review said that with this newest novel, the series as a whole now “has something for everybody: power and politicking, friendship and found family, cannibalism and comfort food.”"