Set in the same universe as The Ancillary Trilogy, Ann Leckie‘s Provenance (2017) is, essentially, a police procedural. Leckie’s ability to create both characters you care about and cultural settings deep enough to hold your attention shines through, but your enjoyment of Provenance probably boils down to how much you enjoy whodunnits served up with heavy doses of political maneuverings.
This is very much old-school interpretations of WWI type stuff, where world (galactic, in this case) wars can be started or prevented by killing or saving Arch Duke Ferdinand. It’s full of intrigue, sibling rivalry, aliens in disguise, and sordid love affairs.
More interesting for me is an underlying conceit: the primary cultural group is obsessed with their own history, prizing memento’s from historical events–napkins used by so-and-so, invitations, pottery, each carefully signed and dated–as highly coveted objects of status. Selfies have been replaced by souvenir collages. The story hinges on the question of what happens when those relics are falsified, or when the events they commemorate are revealed to not have occurred in quite the way the history books declare.
I am curious about how long Leckie stays in this universe–there are certainly more stories to tell here, and while I think the Ancillary Trilogy is more rewarding than Provenance, I’ll be happy to stick around for a few more of them.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Write mysteries. The creative process behind them baffles me–I know so little about what is going to happen when I write, intricate plot points that are revealed by later action just seem like an impossible task. I am more likely to have a crime occur that is never solved, I think.