Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie)

It's hard to know where to begin, this book was both very enjoyable and quite thought provoking. The cunning obfuscation of gender and skillful presentation of a mind with many bodies have been mentioned. I think my favourite element is the motivation of the central character. She never really explains why she wants to keep shooting Anaander Mianaai (and bonus points for that name, I love saying it to myself) and there's never anything so blunt as an heart to heart about it. It seems both more complicated and simpler than vengeance. I like the idea that shooting Anaander Mianaai was the last thing that Justice of Toren did as a whole being and that the remaining fragment is stuck in that moment like part of a broken machine.

Probably the best book I have read this year. It truly deserves all it's accolades. Not only is it an interesting story of vengeance, but it also manages to ask a lot of questions about how we view gender, without being blatant about it and breaking the immersion in the story. A virtuoso piece of writing!

Superb and different space opera / cyberpunk novel which manages to do that rare thing for a first book of cramming in about a million ideas without feeling overloaded. Brilliantly paced and cleverer than a fox that's just been given a clever transplant at the world renowned Clever Institute for Clever Things. I'm not sure I've seen the multiple minds / viewpoints from one character thing done better and the way gender is handled is really smart. The plot tends to stay just on the right side of overwhelming throughout which is exactly how I like my scifi; sometimes playing catchup but never getting completely lost.

Often you read these multiple award wining novels and think meh... it's not that great (especially the case with Hugo winners although this won everything else going this year too) but this really lives up to the hype.