Ancillary Justice

Extract: "Ancillary Justice" is a complex novel. There are a lot of good ideas and fun plots strewn around it. There's the twist to the AI computer has a nervous breakdown plot, there's the evil empire, there's the noir-ish assassin, there are the subjugated people assimilated into the AI's human network, and finally there's the part that everyone's already reviewed the heck out of: the language without gender. It has all the makings of a terrific novel, but to me, it just fell flat…