This wonderful and strange book explores identity in ways I have never read before, even in other excellent science-fiction stories with non-human characters. The main character of this book is an AI, currently living under a false name and passing for human. It used to be a spaceship, with dozens of humanoid ancillary bodies at its disposal, but 19 years ago it was reduced to a single body. It has been traveling through various worlds ever sense, trying to figure out why nearly all of itself was destroyed. It is seeking a mythical weapon, possibly the only tool that might allow it to receive justice from the it's opponent. One thing that immediately struck me from the first page, and continued to subtly influence the whole story, was the author's choice to use only female pronouns for every character, whether or not they have a gender or that gender is every disclosed in the narrative. In that sense this book is a direct descendant to Ursula K Leguin's The Left Hand of Darkness but I'd say this book goes even farther into exploring gender-free intergalactic space. Also similar to LeGuin is the richly imagined and beautifully developed alien cultures of the Imperial Radchaai Empire.