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Ancillary Sword is fuckin' awesome.
Like the only Sci-fi that matters, it absolutely requires you to think. It doesn't waste a second on unnecessary description, or exposition. Rather, it plops you in the middle of a jungle, hands you a Swiss Army knife, and trusts you to find your way around.
Reminiscent of the best works of Wolfe, Dan Simmons and Leguin, it plants you in center of an unknowable situation, and lets you piece things together based on what you see through the protagonist's eyes.
I'm really enjoying it. Weird ass hero.. a singing AI? Still, somehow, totally badass and utterly unique. I get why it won so many awards, as it pulls off some pretty extrordinary narrative feats that border on the experimental. I'm not sure I've ever read a story with a perspective like this before. So I think the acclaim is directed at the deftness with which the author handles this... it's a stunning book from technical writing perspective. But the story itself is also completely engrossing.
Recommend.
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