She Commands Me and I Obey

Imperial Radch #0.6

by Ann Leckie

A short story set in the world of Ancillary Justice, published by Strange Horizons as part of their annual funding drive.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

25 pages, ebook

First published November 17, 2014

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little confusing at first, challenging in the way that Ancillary Justice is on first read. I'm a little surprised at others' meh ratings for this short story because I thought it really well done--a mix of sports and politics, but with what's really interesting going on underneath. I think Ultimately-Justice-Shall-Prevail is the person who will one day wind up as Breq, the last ancillary of Justice of Toren, and if so, what an appropriate beginning! I love the sprawl of the past in Leckie's world, how it's unstated, but you can see how this connects to Ancillary Justice and exactly how Ultimately-Justice-Shall-Prevail might wind up as a saint, if not how she eventually winds up as an ancillary (although knowing Leckie, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's some mention in Ancillary Justice that tells exactly how it happened, if you know what to look for).

Anyway, whatever, all you meh-ers! Whatever! I loved this and am looking forward to making my friend who is also obsessed with this series read it too and then talk about it!

[Mitticus · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.3

Short story in the Imperial Radch 'verse.

Remember an icon that certain character had? and something about a tetrarch?

Well, there’s this game that... although it’s actually more of a high-risk sport played on Noage Itray, a 35-mile-long cylindrical space station.

Told from the point of view of a boy, it recounts a culture of monks, a goddess, players, and the same old politicians. Although we already wish some things to be resolved that quickly.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was kind of a mix between aztec sports and a political rally. I'd like to say that it was different from any other democratic circus, but the deaths at the end only seems poetical.

One thing I loved about the story were the character's names. They evoke such strong imagery.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ball game and politics combined into a deadly ending. The character names were fascinating and utterly confusing.

[Pernilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story set in the same universe as Leckie's Imperial Radch Trilogy, and if I'm not mistaken we are here given some backstory to One Esk Nineteen, or rather to the person who used to be Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen and later became Breq. This must surely be set after the destruction of Justice of Toren, but before the events in Ancillary Justice. It's seems to me that Ultimately-Justice-Will-Prevail is already an ancillary, because of her calm, precise and expressionless demeanour, and her physical strength and speed. (The name is really a dead giveaway, too -- she is obviously playing a long game here, preparing for what she is planning to do.) It is, of course, also the backstory of the Itran icon Seven-Brilliant-Truths-Shine-Like-Suns that so strongly resembles Breq, and of the box of moissanite teeth and the necklace that Breq gives away toward the end of Ancillary Mercy.

The story itself, like the books, does demand some attention from the reader. It's not easily penetrated, and hints subtly at what is going on rather than explaining it. This is one of the reasons that I love Leckie, she is never clunky with her exposition, but rather expects some work from her readers. I'm pretty sure I will understand more on a second reading than I did on the first.

I'm also one of the people who actually enjoyed not knowing Breq's exact gender in the novels, for various reasons, and am in two minds about having it exposed to me in this story. (Insofar as an ancillary actually does have a gender, which is, I suppose, debatable, with regards to all practical purposes.)

[Cait · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was NOT about what I thought it was going to be about based on the title! not to be...hm...unkind to those who found this confusing or impenetrable, but I really did not, uh, find this particularly difficult to understand (although I don't recommend this as your entry point into the imperial radch universe).

I DID really love it, though. I think this is a little more accessible than "night's slow poison" (even though I also really enjoyed "night's slow poison") because it's more directly related to the ancie trilogy, even though it's also not...SUPER....closely related to the trilogy. this filled a really good "point-something"-installment-of-a-series niche for me in that the series functions fully without this story (I wouldn't really call it a short of the "missing scene" variety, although I suppose.....one could.........), and the story functions as a complete standalone, but obviously having read the trilogy, or at least book 1, first makes this read more enjoyable. I don't know, it scratches an itch for me in a lot of these "point-something" installments (in any genre) do not.

also while reading I was like "wait I thought seven-brilliant-truths was a...never mind."

if you enjoy the ancie books & want to read about breq breaking legs and taking names (yes that's a grotesque oversimplification of this story but whatever!) and ~ the mesoamerican ballgame ~ In Space, I recommend this!

(since strange horizons is TERRIBLE at linking their own links, part 1 + part 2)

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story prequel from the same setting as Ancillary Justice.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fascinating. A look at one of the worlds in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch universe. A world where a game is a religious devotion and an election all at once. The author has a knack for creating these fantastic societies utterly foreign to our own and writing about them in a compelling fashion.

[Maija]

A short story set in the Imperial Radch universe about a society that decides it's leader through a game that is sort of like space basketball. It had been so long since I read Ancillary Justice that I didn't get the link this story has to it until after I read it and then googled. I felt pretty stupid – anyway, believe me, this has a big thing in common with Ancillary Justice. I liked it.

[Vessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant and fast paced story that reveals to us a part of the backstory of Breq.

The author masterfully handles the mixture of political and religious intrigue in a complex society and takes the reader through a maze of meaningful and significant details that eventually culminate in a satisfying ending.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story 5 in my 24 Days of Shorts

Every favor comes with a price.

Leckie is, as always, masterful. She has imbued these twenty-five pages with centuries of ritual. I could almost smell the incense wafting off the screen. This was gripping, brutal, and breath-taking.

What I didn't realize until I read other reviews: (not really a spoiler but ...)Ultimately-Justice-Will-Prevail IS Breq aka Justice of Toren. This is set after Justice of Toren is destroyed but before the start of Ancillary Mercy. The statue ... the head ... the maisonite teeth are all mentioned (sometimes briefly) in the main series. I guess my question is: who is Qefahl Aresh, and why did Breq involve herself in this?

read it for yourself here:
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/sh...


My 24 Days of Shorts
1. Yiwu by Lavie Tidhar
2. The Night Cyclist by Stephen Graham Jones
3. AI and the Trolley Problem by Pat Cadigan
4. Sleeper by Jo Walton
5. She Commands Me and I Obey by Ann Leckie
6. Your Orisons May Be Recorded by Laurie Penny
7. This World is Full of Monsters by Jeff VanderMeer
8. The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
9. Triquetra by Kirstyn McDermott
10. A Human Stain by Kelly Robson
11. Our King and His Court by Rich Larson
12. Errata by Jeff VanderMeer
13. Night's Slow Poison by Ann Leckie
14. A Kiss With Teeth by Max Gladstone
15. God Product by Alyssa Wong
16. Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light! by Kameron Hurley
17. The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho
18. The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
19. Blue is a Darkness Weakened by Light by Sarah McCarry
20. The Too-Clever Fox by Leigh Bardugo
21. Daughter of Necessity by Marie Brennan
22. Red as Blood and White as Bone by Theodora Goss by China Miéville
24. Julian: A Christmas Story by Robert Charles Wilson

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately, justice shall prevail. And Breq will ensure that it does, no matter when or where.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

You need to go into this a) having read Leckie's Ancillary series, and b) knowing that the only female character in this story is Breq. Unless you are an obsessive cataloger of Ancillarilia, there is no way you will figure this out on your own.

Leckie is so gifted and her imagination so boundless that it's lovely to take a dip in the product of her mind. That being said, this is such a short story and the politics are so obfuscated that it works better as a "hey lookit this piece of Breq's life" than an actual narrative about the main character, a young male monk.

[Dichotomy Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

God I love this world....

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

God I fucking love Ann Leckie

[The Captain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahoy there mateys! It's Sci-Fi Month!!  After rereading the Imperial Radch trilogy, I thought I would take some time to read the two short stories set in the world.  These stories are free online.  I do not however recommend that these stories by yer introduction to the world (personal opinion. others disagree).  Here be me thoughts.

she commands me and i obey (Imperial Radch #0.6)

This be a short story set in the world of Ancillary Justice, published by Strange Horizons as part of their annual funding drive.  It was released in two parts.  This story is around 25 pages long.

This lovely part of this story is that it be a sci-fi that contains references to sports.  I thought this was cool because Matey Kathy had an awesome post that discussed sports in world building.  I am not a sports player meself but do love watching baseball games of me team occasionally (not too often cause they rile me up).  Of course in this story the sports outcomes are related to life and death and politics.  I adored this tale.  I loved the character names, the sport, the world-building, the complexities of the politics, and above all the main character.  The sport reminded me a bit of the Aztec ball game Ullamaliztli.  This story gets five stars.  And answers questions from the Radch trilogy.  Or at least the theories be awesome.

I absolutely love Ann Leckie and cannot wait to see whatever it be that she writes next.  Arrrr!

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read many short stories -- they're usually just too short when what I enjoy most is sinking deep into a story's world. Well, I'm sure it helps I've already read and loved Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, but this short story sucked me in, and I didn't want to come out again, yet I still found the story satisfying and complete. I love Leckie's subtlety. I love how she can get across this feeling of a rich, full world while saying very little. I'm a fan.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story about an important "ball game" on a future space station, though I'm not sure how it fits into the Imperial Radch universe. Is "Ultimately-Justice-Shall-Prevail" the person who will later become Breq? I'm probably forgetting/missing something here.

[Jeraviz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ambientada en el universo del Radch, la mezcla de deporte y política es interesante pero los nombres de los personajes distraen mucho y te suelta en mitad de la acción sin explicarte nada. También se ve venir más o menos lo que va a ocurrir.
Como dicen las 2 estrellas de Goodreads: "It was ok"

[Sanoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with Night's Slow Poison, I'm pretty sure there were quite a few Imperial Radch references that went right over my head, given how long it's been since I read the main trilogy. Still, from the bits that did make it into my head, this was a pretty fun and engaging short story.

[Veronika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anfangs ein bisschen verwirrend und nicht so leicht zugänglich - Ann Leckie beginnt gerne mittendrin - aber dann entwickelte es doch einen, für mich, erstaunlichen Sog. Auf 25 Seiten schafft Leckie es tatsächlich eine recht komplexe Handlung zu packen, deren ganze Ebenen sich vermutlich erst bei mehrfachem Lesen entschlüsseln lassen.
Ich schließe mich der Meinung anderer Rezensenten an, dass es sich bei "Ultimately-Justice-shall-prevail" um die Person handelt, die eines Tages als Breq-letzte Ancillary von Justice of Toren endet. Und das ganze ist eine hervorragende Vorgeschichte um ihren Charakter und ihren Geist näher zu beleuchten. Und es macht mir jetzt doch sehr große Lust mich dieser Serie wieder zu zu wenden. :)

[Lorre · Rating 2 out of 5]

The names of the characters in this short story were extremely distracting. They were long and weird, and I couldn't remember who was who throughout the story. The names completely took me out of the flow of the story and I almost didn't finish it. What kept me going is that it was short and I wouldn't have to suffer through it for long.

I really do hope all those names won't come back in the full novels!

[Anny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another world, another game. A ball game where the losing captain will die. A story where as usual, some things are implied, nothing much is explained.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

In and of itself, not much, but read it between books 2 and 3 of the Ancillary series, and the relevance becomes clear...

[Susan]

Enjoyable. Interesting combining sports and politics.

[abi · Rating 5 out of 5]

hnnnnnnnng this was so sexy ann leckie write more please please please please

[Lisa Feld · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprise, top to tail: a strange fusion of monastery/court intrigue and sports tale that somehow takes the best of both genres and blends them into a seamless whole. It took a while to get used to the naming conventions (all names here are short phrases, which can be hard to keep track of, and gendered pronouns in the names don't match the pronouns of the people who bear them), but despite some occasional backtracking to remind myself of the characters' actions and their relationships to one another, I enjoyed this quite a bit and had fun seeing what Breq seems like from an outside perspective, since the Imperial Radch trilogy is entirely from her point of view.

My only quibble (and it truly is a minor one!) is that I don't fully understand the rules of the game they're playing: if scoring immediately after the other team scores resets both teams to zero, I'm not sure how both teams can have points at the same time; maybe that reset can only happen at certain points in the game, but it wasn't clear to me.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sister Ultimately-Justice-Shall-Prevail is a really good name for Breq. Four stars because, like basically every short story I've ever read, I would've just rather this had been a full novel. I do understand why it's only a short story though. The Tetrarchy is a nation( maybe? some sort of space-based polity at any rate ) whose rulers are chosen by whatever monastery can put together the best sports team. As if that wasn't enough riding on an athletic contest, the captain of the losing team is executed at the hand of the captain of the winning team. The setting is basically a sports anime taken to it's logical extreme. I think Leckie is a fabulous author, she won all the awards for Ancillary Justice for a reason after all, but having read this I'm not dying to read an entire tournament arc from her.

[5t4n5 Dot Com · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well this was not what i expected.

Apparently, supposedly, based in the same universe as the Imperial Radch Trilogy, i was expecting something as good as the trilogy but instead got this jumble-luted mess of names that was just ridiculous to follow.

Really, your readers expect much, much better, Ann.   Although, as i have said in the past, every writer is allowed to write something utterly below their abilities once in while.   But it's still annoying to wade through this nonsense.

Even the sports match was just nonsense.   Was it like a game of tennis or something?   I really couldn't work out what the game was about.

Onwards and upwards, next in this universe is Provenance, i do hope for much better.

Bye for now.

[Mike]

Leckie's writing is assured and powerful, as always, in this shorter piece set in a different part of the same universe as her Ancillary books. By using distancing techniques (here, elaborate phrasal names and a formal style) she manages to convey horrific ideas without making them too horrific to stand. Here, political appointments are determined by the playing of a game, with the losing captain being executed (in place of the losing candidate, a substitution made some years before in the tradition). Intrigue and the abuse of power run as a thread through the story, as in the Ancillary books, and yet there is a theme of making morally right choices.