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I thought this had some really brilliant ideas that were cleverly executed. It's fantastically well written, particularly for a debut novel. It fell short of the five star mark for me because it just missed some element I can't quite put my finger on and I felt the ending didn't quite round off the way I would have liked it to.

The ancillary concept is really awesome. It took a while to figure it out but I've always preferred the style of world building that lets the world come to life around the protagonist rather than have things explained in what is usually a fairly unnatural manner.

I enjoyed the time split from two points of view. (No not like that). I found myself enjoying one time frame more than the other at certain times during the book and I enjoyed the fact that every second chapter bounced between the two. I also thought it was a very good way to slowly explain how Breq had ended up where she was.

The gender question was interesting and I'm not sure I fully understand why it was significant. Everyone was called "she" although not everyone is in fact female. The second realisation came later than the first and some people may find themselves uncomfortable with a book made up entirely of female characters. It raises a question of why. We then discover that not everyone who is called "she" is in fact female so the reader can breath easy. It did help to distinguish where you were from if you could easily identify gender, so it did play a role in the novel itself, but I think it might be more powerful in the external reader reaction context.

There were also interesting questions of morals and ethics in terms of war and murder. Ann Leckie exposed some of the fundamental hypocrisies of who we're ok with killing and how vs what is going over the line.

I'm excited to read more in the series. I'd like to meet some of the alien species we've heard about but haven't encountered as of yet. I'm also very excited to see where this is going next. I have high hopes for this one.