Ancillary (Cover image via Orbit)
5. Ancillary Justice
Why wouldn’t alien-like societies have different conceptions of gender than our own? After all, it could easily be strange to divide your society up into an average of two genders. Why even pick one? The question can get even more diverse and beautifully complicated when you introduce artificial intelligence. Without the confusing mess that may or may not be gender and biological determinism, the whole game changes.
Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice won the Nebula Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel, one of the top prizes in the genre. Leckie even beat out previous big-name winners like Nicola Griffith and Neil Gaiman.
Ancillary Justice is narrated by Breq, an artificial intelligence who moves throughout the massive and complex Radsch empire. The Radchaai people are so indifferent to the concept of gender that it simply doesn’t exist in their society. Regardless of biological differences, people more or less dress the same, speak the same, and interact with each in a similar manner.
Their language also fails to distinguish amongst genders. In the text, the Radsch language’s pronouns are simply translated to “she” and “her” in all cases. Anyone, much less an AI like Breq, would have a difficult time determining who is “male”, “female”, or anything else.
Breq’s AI is used to control an “ancillary” human body. The plot itself centers around the long-lost starship, the Justice of Toren. Breq and an officer, Seivarden, also meet 19 years later on an ice planet. The narrative jumps back and forth between the more recent events on the ice planet and beyond, and to the Justice just before its destruction.
Ancillary Justice isn’t exactly an LGBTQIA+ novel outright, but its thoughtful questioning of gender and society more than earns the book a spot on this list.