Is it weird that I enjoyed this book as much as I did, seeing as it’s basically about municipal administration? There’s also some organized religion in there, and a dash of (distant) planetary rebellion, but mostly it’s about the trials of trying to run a city under adverse circumstances. The story is set in the Imperial Radch universe, but for the most part that background has little to no bearing on the events in the book itself, which take place on a small, remote planet. There’s a fairly large and varied cast of characters, one of which—in a fun, 19th-century literature sort of a way—is the rather opinionated but otherwise unidentified narrator. I found some of the characters more appealing than others, but the overall effect was, well, effective in painting a picture of a bustling and diverse little world. If you’re familiar with the other books set in this universe, you’ll have a suspicion of what’s going in the background here, and the ending of the book ties in very nicely with Translation State in particular. In general, it was a good, fun read.

Further reading…