Ancillary Justice's present day storyline follows an AI that has been split apart from the many other humans and ship that it used to control, interspliced with flashbacks when it was a ship and the events that led to its present day circumstance. I really enjoyed the flashbacks which built up an interesting political dynamic and mystery related to some shadowy figure moving behind the scenes. These chapters had narrative tension and seemed to be building towards some interesting sociopolitical themes. Unfortunately, this storyline catches up to the present day, and the story fully shifts to the other timeline at this point. This story was significantly less interesting to me and didn't have the same tension or intrigue. I also found myself struggling to connect with the disconnected AI character or their companion, the latter of whom really feels kind of random within this book. Also, while I think it's an interesting idea, I didn't care much for the antagonist once it was revealed who was pulling the strings. I think it pushed the story into more of a high concept sci-fi story instead of a more theme and character-driven story that is trying to make sociopolitical commentary. The writing style really reminds me of something like A Memory Called Empire which is why I was expecting the latter, as well as some of the setup. However, the book doesn't exactly jump into those aspects, instead focusing on the sci-fi style conflicts. There are still questions about identity and what it means to be human and civilized. However, it purposefully mixes genders around similar to something like Terra Ignota or frames the empire's annexations as fuel for its imperialism similar to something like The Traitor Baru Cormorant without really exploring these topics in-depth like those books do. I still really enjoyed the flashback chapters and the first half to first 2/3rds of this book, but based on the direction it is heading, I might skip the sequels.