A Masterful Tale of Alien Identity: Ann Leckie – Translation State

I went rogue and read this standalone entry in Leckie’s Imperial Radch universe without having finished the original trilogy and without having read Provenance. If you’re thinking of doing the same, go for it, it totally works. There may be spoilers for the previous books, but I personally didn’t mind and will definitely still go back and read those. Also, this makes my Hugo ballot a lot more difficult to arrange… Thanks, Ann Leckie!

TRANSLATION STATE
by Ann Leckie

Published: Orbit, 2023
Ebook: 432 pages
Standalone
My rating: 8.5/10

Opening line: The last stragglers in the funeral procession were barely out the ghost door before the mason bots unfolded their long legs and reached for the pile of stones they’d removed from the wall so painstakingly the day before.

The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across galaxies in this powerful new novel by one of the masters of modern science fiction. Translation State is at once a sweeping space adventure and a brilliant exploration of how in order to belong, we must first become.

When Enae’s grandmaman passes away, Enae inherits something entirely unexpected: a diplomatic assignment to track down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. No one actually expects Enae to succeed; it’s an empty assignment meant to keep hir occupied. But Enae has never had a true purpose—no one ever expected hir to do more than care for grandmaman—so sie is determined to accomplish this task to the best of hir ability.

Reet knows nothing about his biological family. He loves his adoptive parents, but has always secretly yearned to understand his identity, the roots that would explain why he seems to operate just a bit differently. After all, no one else hungers to study the world by ripping it apart, by slicing into those around them in order to make sense of things. So when a political group approaches him with the claim that he has ties to a genetically mysterious, long-deceased family, Reet is only too eager to believe them.

Qven was created to be a Presgr translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presgr and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something different isn’t “optimal behavior”. It’s the type of behavior that will have you eliminated. But Qven rebels anyway, determined to find a way to belong on their own terms.

As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presgr is on the line—the paths of all three will collide in a chain of events that will have ripple effects across galaxies.

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Ah, what balm for the reading soul to dive into an Ann Leckie novel. In Translation State, we follow three distinct POV characters who start out in different places and with very different goals in life. First is middle-aged Enae whose grandmaman has just passed away. After a very Knives Out intro to hir family and their cold-hearted ways, we learn that Enae didn’t, in fact, inherit much but hir grandmaman has made sure sie is taken care of, at least. The caveat is that Enae is sent out on a job that is impossible to do: Sie is given charge of a missing person case from 200 years ago, which is really just busy work to keep hir out of the way. But Enae is not the kind of person who likes to be idle, so if sie has to go visit certain stations and places anyway, sie might as well, you know… look for that missing person from all those years ago. As you may guess, gentle reader, sie finds much more than expected.

Second is Reet Hluid, a man working on Rurusk Station and one of many siblings in a large family. His mom, mama, and maman adopted him when he was found as a baby and although they’ve tried to figure out where he came from, there are no real clues. What Reet wants most is a place to truly belong, where he feels like he is welcomed without reservation. So when he is approached by the Siblings of Hikipu and told he is a long-lost heir to one of their most important leaders, that might just be his chance to find a place in the world.

Lastly, my personal favorite among the POVs, comes Qven, whose identity I may have understood faster had I read all the other books, but the added mystery worked really well for me. It’s not a secret or a spoiler that Qven is a juvenile Presgr Translator whom we follow from infancy (if you can call it that) through childhood and into almost-adulthood. The descriptions of casual cannibalism (again, if you can call it that, the Presgr being alien) and the training they undergo in order to become Translators were both fascinating and horrifying. I was absolutely glued to the page during Qven’s chapters and wanted to soak up every bit of information about this alien species – well, alien-created sub-species, I guess? – that I could. But Qven’s life doesn’t go as planned either, and after a harrowing incident, Qven is left with what seems like only bad options.

The three POV characters get together pretty soon, which I found refreshing, and the plot doesn’t take long to thicken and take on a satisfying shape. I honestly couldn’t tell you what my favorite parts of this book were because I was taken with pretty much all of it.
The main plot is mostly about identity and personhood, about finding a place to belong – something all three protagonists are looking for, even if Reet’s search for a true home is the most obvious. This includes petitions and meetings with officials, jurists and specialists on the treaty that keeps the peace between humans and the Presgr, a treaty the Radchaai worked out many years ago. This was another part that I probably would have gotten sooner if I had been up to date with Ann Leckie’s bibliography, but again, not knowing the details didn’t take away anything from this book.

The main characters were lovable each in their own way. Qven’s alienness made it harder to connect, for obvious reasons (our kindergarten experiences contain a lot less opening up of other bodies and checking what’s inside) but at the core, Qven is just a scared and lonely person in search of a family.
Enae took a while to take shape in my mind, but I love a practical and inherently decent character, so even though sie felt like a blank slate at first, I came to enjoy following hir very soon. By the end, I was rooting for hir all the way!
Reet was the last one I started caring about, not because he behaved in a particularly unlikeable way, but because he felt so distant and maybe also because I was a little lost in his storyline at first, what with the Siblings of Hikipu and all their talk about Lovehate Station – again, events I assume were part of the Imperial Radch trilogy or of Provenance. But just like the other two, Reet grew on me and I hoped for nothing but his happiness.

There’s also so much cool alien culture stuff, politics, space travel, and some truly weird wibbly wobbly shit going on that I can’t go into without spoiling things. This is definitely not an action-packed novel, but there are several moments of imminent danger and life-threatening situations that our heroes have to handle. I enjoyed every single one of them, whether it was the quietly deadly scenes in which a committee of people decide the fate of another person, or the more overtly ones like people shooting at each other, time and space not playing by the usual rules, you know, the usual cool science-fictional death traps. 🙂

I was a bit shocked when I saw how many people reviewed this book negatively. The one thing they all seem to have in common is that they have read the original trilogy in its entirety, so maybe my unofficial reading order is the way to go? I have nothing but love for this book which did not at all feel like 400+ pages. With its short chapters and multiple POVs, the pages just kept flying by and I never really wanted to put it down. Ann Leckie’s skill as a writer also didn’t hurt. She transported me from meeting rooms to space stations, Presgr Translator habitats to Grandmaman’s mansion without effort, she created characters that managed to be super alien and utterly human at the same time, and she tells a satisfying well-paced story that one can just sit down and eat up. It’s everything I like in science fiction.

My expectations for this book were high, given how much I adored Ancillary Justice when it came out, but I didn’t think I’d love this so much that it would make ranking my Hugo ballot a struggle. Welp, here we are. And I suppose having read too many great books is a complaint I can live with.

MY RATING: 8.5/10 – Excellent!

P.S.: I have got to finally read those other Imperial Radch books! Someone kick me in the butt, please.