Ancillary Mercy

Why it’s on the list: The close of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, in which an empire ruled by one mind living in many bodies — whose copies have stopped agreeing — comes to a head. It asks directly what a mind running on many instances owes the instances, and who counts as a person when personhood is an administrative category.

Where I heard about it

• The a16z infrastructure team — on the a16z Infra Reading List, B tier (“also worth reading”), volume three of the Imperial Radch entry, which they describe as “dramatic and often funny,” about revenge, politics and consciousness.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from.
• Ann Leckie — the author.
• Ancillary Justice · Ancillary Sword — volumes one and two.
• Identity — the trilogy’s running question.
• Science Fiction — the genre page.