[this review shared with the trilogy]
Okay so I picked these up (aka got them for Christmas) because I’d heard that the main culture these take place in has no concept of gender and everyone uses she/her pronouns by Translation Convention, and I, an agender, thought that sounded cool.

As it turns out these books ALSO have a lot of really cool concepts about identity, computers, independence, and politics. They use the gender thing to introduce you to all kinds of ideas about AIs and robot armies.

I loved them.

Sword has been accused of being the weakest of the three, which I think is from reviewers who didn’t read it in conjunction with Mercy. Initially I thought it was a quiet, character building midpoint novel, but Sword and Mercy really function more as two halves of the same novel, with Justice acting as the prologue.

Of the three, Justice would benefit the most from a reread, as it hinges the most on keeping information from the reader.

Anyway, I’m gay, everyone in this series is gay, the worldbuilding is exceptional and unique, and Breq is adorable.