Ancillary Mercy

by Ann Leckie

Info

Date Finished: 10/29/2026

First Sentence: One moment asleep.

Last Sentence: In the end, it’s always been one step and then the next.

Companion Album:

New Cover

Pale gray background is divided by a dashed brown grid, like a sewing pattern or cutting template. In the center, a lime-green ring split into four arcs surrounds a four-pointed star, and every shape has a dashed outline as if marked for cutting. The word Ancillary runs across the middle in heavy, semi-transparent gray capitals, with Mercy below it in a dark brown serif.

A Few Thoughts

The Ancillary series explores the idea of resolving a massive, galaxy-spanning, centuries-long conflict with empathy. I found it very unsatisfying, but I'll probably remember the series for the rest of my reading life.

Ancillary Mercy is what kept me going when Ancillary Sword slowed its pace to a crawl. I'd heard that, while the first two books aren't perfect, the third is, for the most part.

What I found, though, is that it's more of the same. A lot of tea, a ton of sitting around and talking about our feelings, hints at a much larger conflict happening somewhere (and sometime) else, and a focus on local politics.

The ideas are interesting, but not explored much further than they were in the first two books. For example, one motif I like is that the gun always goes off, but the results backfire for the person shooting. When this happens in Ancillary Mercy, you can see this twist from a mile away.

But I think the issue goes deeper. The tyrant has thousands of bodies, and we interact with one in this book. Shockingly, it acts like a petty tyrant and ... you don't actually learn that much more about what it's like to be a tyrant like that.

One of the new ideas in Ancillary Mercy is the interaction between different lifeforms, both AI and alien. But, a lot of those scenes are played for laughs: "Haha, look at the alien ambassador (who is human btw) trying to eat a fish raw." or "Oh, isn't it so goofy the alien ambassador drinks fish sauce like tea?"

The result feels to me like Ann Leckie is, ironically, infantilizing the characters. There are moments I think would spark violence that people talk through as if lives aren't on the line. I think this is supposed to be played as the "adult" thing to do, but not all adults are rational and empathetic!

You see this infantilization in many of the lower-stakes subplots. In Ancillary Mercy, one subplot follows officer Seivaarden as they learn how to truly apologize to another. This is a very adult and empathetic thing to do.

But in order to get to that point, another character (an AI btw) has to explain to Seivaarden that you can (gasp) hurt people you love without realizing it!

I don't find it interesting watching Seivaarden wrestle with how to communicate well with another. While I'm reading these plot points, I'm wondering about the larger conflict and the forever-teased, but never-revealed, alien Presger.

What I appreciate is Leckie committing to her ideas on empathy and conflict resolution. The series is cohesive, and it resolves well on its own terms. It's unique, and I'll compare most scifi I read in the future against it. I just don't think it's my taste.