The plot, as I've come to expect from Leckie, is dense and delicious. The characters are individual and strange, their relationships to one another both familiar and very foreign. It lacks the absolute brilliance of the other Ancilliary books, probably because we don't have a first-person semi-omnicient narrator like Brec.

Addition upon rereading: read up against older scifi, instead of against Leckie's own previous works, this shines a whole lot brighter. The narrative and characters stand up to close scrutiny, as does the world building, and all of it is interesting and all of it is fully formed. Plus, I love the idea of people declaring their own majority when they feel ready, and that coming with an adult name and pronouns.