_Radiant Star_, Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie's latest entry in the Imperial Radch setting, Radiant Star, was even more fun than I'd expected. While I've enjoyed all of the books (and shorts!) I've read in this universe, this latest is a funnier, brighter book than the rest, despite its fairly serious subject matter (starvation, sectarian warfare, &c).

Plotwise, we spend our time on a minor planet on the outskirts of the Radch. The Imperial governor oversees several squabbling sects who tend a temple where the Radiant Star, some kind of divine light, is supposed to come or return. The temple's sects make much of their money off of for-profit prophecies, along with selling extruded plastic bits to pilgrims, and fight over control of the temple proper. Leckie reveals the particularities of this planet's culture, politics, and ecosystem elegantly, packing an awful lot of information without ever resorting to dreaded infodump, and the result is an exciting little tinderbox. Tension mounts steadily as things go wrong, first slowly and then quickly, and I found the novel difficult to put down in the best possible way.

The novel is elevated by its narrator's voice, more than anything else, which has a Dickensian archness to it - complete with asides to us, their Dear Reader. This comedy doesn't come at the expense of worldliness, however. Much as I love, say, The Murderbot Diaries or the Locked Tomb books, it's very easy for an overchatty narrator to feel anachronistic in a way that breaks my immersion into the world of the novel. Here, conversely, the voice brings me deeper into the world. I think this is a consequence of the content of these asides, which explicitly assumes a reader whose knowledge of given corners of the setting might be limited by that reader's position within that setting. For example, the narrator precedes a description of Radch peculiarities with a caveat that their Radch listeners no doubt already know what they're about to say. These small touches make the world feel large and lived in.

Leckie also leverages comic repetition here in a way that I think is new to her style, to great effect. Ridiculous phrases like "peas and pucks" or "worm bits" become semantically saturated and provide humorous relief just as the story reaches its climax, which helps keep the tension manageable without diffusing it overmuch. The novel isn't terribly ambitious - it's a minor story, well-told, which the narration as much as admits in several places - but that's a mark in its favor, not against it. Leckie's a wonderful author and this is a great addition to a terrific series.

Read if you like: Leckie's other work, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Jane Austen.

Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 (4.5/5)

PS: I listened to the bulk of this book on a long drive to Maryland and am pleased to report that Adjoa Andoh's narration is as good here as it is in the rest of the series.