Translation State

by Ann Leckie
Adjoa Andoh

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The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across the stars in this powerful novel from a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author: "There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can" (John Scalzi).

Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination.
But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.
As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.
Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration about relationships and belonging, Translation State is a triumphant new standalone story set in Leckie's celebrated Imperial Radch universe.

Creators
- Ann Leckie
  
  Author
- Adjoa Andoh
  
  Narrator
Series

Imperial Radch
Publisher

Hachette Audio

Edition: Unabridged
Awards
- Hugo Award Nominee
- Libby Award Finalist
Release date

June 6, 2023
Formats
- OverDrive Listen audiobook
  - ISBN: 9781549164835
  - File size: 347475 KB
  - Duration: 12:03:54
Languages
- English
Reviews
- Publisher's Weekly
  
  Starred review from March 27, 2023
  Hugo and Nebula award winner Leckie (Ancillary Justice) returns to the Imperial Radch universe in a staggering standalone novel that follows three people brought together by the mysterious disappearance of a translator. After Enae’s Grandmaman dies, diplomat Enae finds a welcome distraction in an impossibly open-ended assignment to track down a fugitive who disappeared 200 years before the start of the book. Aboard the station Enae is headed to, diplomatic liaison Reet searches for answers about his past as an orphan and adoptee, but finds only further questions. Meanwhile, an attack on juvenile Presger translator Qven, part of a spectacularly weird alien race designed to translate alien Presger into human, derails Qven’s life and ruins their prestigious prospects. When Qven understands what their clade has planned for them as punishment, Qven decides to flee, putting them on a collision course with the other protagonists. It’s exhilarating to see the way these seemingly disparate story lines knit themselves together as all three protagonists become embroiled in a political mess that threatens the treaty that safeguards interspecies coexistence in space. Leckie’s humane, emotionally intelligent, and deeply perceptive writing makes this tautly plotted adventure feel fundamentally true while also offering longtime fans a much anticipated glimpse into the Radch’s most mysterious species. Readers will be thrilled. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Co.
- Library Journal
  
  Starred review from April 1, 2023
  The vast Imperial Radch is at war with itself after the events in Leckie's Ancillary Mercy. Three individuals, all discarded or considered superfluous by their own societies, find themselves on a collision course with each other and with forces either wishing to shore up the fracturing power of the Radchaii or pry their galaxy-spanning hegemony even further apart. But the individuals they think they are using for their own political purposes (Enae the no-longer-needed caregiver; Qven the ruined translator; and Reet, whose parent fled Qven's fate and whose humanity is now being legally questioned and psychologically assaulted) come together to fight the empire and secure freedom for themselves--and quite possibly for worlds beyond counting. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed Arkady Martine's "Teixcalaan" series will see fascinating similarities in this portrait of a rapacious empire as it begins to fall, while any SF reader who loves political skullduggery told through fascinating and empathetic characters will be captivated by Leckie's latest foray into the Imperial Radch in all its complexity and corruption. Highly recommended.--Marlene Harris
  
  Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- AudioFile Magazine
  
  Adjoa Andoh narrates a complex story about identity and belonging set in the Imperial Radch universe. Qven would have become a Presgar translator were it not for a terrible incident that set them careening toward the characters Enae Athur and Reet Hluid, and to the Radch Empire. Andoh expertly navigates the emotional depths of the three main characters, each of whom comes from a background in which they have not felt valued or part of their community. While Qven's history includes shocking trauma and violence, which Andoh renders in a brutally powerful scene, Enae and Reet have also suffered and are given their due by Andoh. As all three claim their identities and start to heal, Andoh's performance resonates in profound ways. K.M.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
- Booklist
  
  Starred review from April 15, 2023
  Leckie's latest stand-alone is set in the same world as her Imperial Radch trilogy (Ancillary Justice, 2013) but focuses on human communities far outside Radchaai space and dives deeper into the mysterious Presger Translators. The novel starts as Enae (who uses gender-neutral hir pronouns) is thrust by hir domineering grandmother's death into a career as a diplomatic officer. Hir first, somewhat make-work assignment is to find a Translator, one of the humanlike emissaries of the mysterious and powerful Presger, who disappeared 200 years ago. Enae's journey takes hir to a segment of space shaped by a thousand years of colonialism, leading to an encounter with Reet Hluid, a young man troubled by mysterious dreams of aggression and transformation. Both Enae and Reet's lives will become intertwined with Qven, a Presger Translator juvenile who rebels at their poorly understood fate, and with other players and factions throughout space. Leckie's ability to seamlessly weave in alternate conceptions of gender, identity, and alien experience remains as strong as ever, as does the propulsive and exciting tenor of her prose. An excellent addition to Leckie's already well-realized and often strange and exciting universe, this new novel is accessible, and essential, to new readers and old fans alike.
  COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- Kirkus
  
  Starred review from April 1, 2023
  A seemingly pointless quest ignites a political firestorm in this space opera follow-up to the Imperial Radch trilogy and Provenance (2017). Enae Athtur (whose pronouns are sie/hir) is forced from hir childhood home and hir comfort zone to take a job for the Saeniss Polity's Office of Diplomacy that's intended as a sinecure: searching for traces of a fugitive Presger Translator who disappeared 200 years ago. Meanwhile, despite having been raised by kindly foster parents, Reet Hluid has never quite fit in anywhere. Ignorant of his origins, trapped in a dead-end job, friendless, and tormented by strangely compelling daydreams of vivisecting the people he meets, he thinks he's finally found community with the Siblings of Hikipu. On what appears to be very little evidence, they claim that Reet is a Schan, a scion of their long-vanished royal line, and welcome him to their fellowship, which celebrates their cultural heritage...and perhaps dabbles in a little terrorism. And Qven, brought up in the innocently violent nursery of the Presger Translators, fears losing themself in the transition to adulthood, which involves a physical and mental merging with another person; their attempt to escape that apparent inevitability leads to Qven's permanent disgrace. When Enae does what no one expects--actually finding the trail of the lost Translator--it upends the lives of Enae, Reet, and Qven and threatens the treaty that protects humanity from the Presger, an impossibly powerful and enigmatic alien race. It all sounds very complicated--and it is, enjoyably so--but basically, this is yet another opportunity for Leckie to explore her favorite themes: the meaning of family, humanity, and the right to one's personhood. Although the novel is mostly set outside the Radch Empire, the events of that trilogy and of Provenance have a profound effect on the action here, and they also share some characters. This work also addresses many questions from the previous books about the peculiar behavior of Translators, whose originally human DNA has been substantially reengineered by the Presger. Another of Leckie's beautiful mergings of the political, philosophical, and personal.
  COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- Library Journal
  
  Starred review from November 1, 2023
  Leckie (Ancillary Mercy; Provenance) returns to the universe she created in her Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning "Imperial Radch" trilogy. Her latest can be read as a stand-alone and explores belonging and self-definition through three central characters, all expertly narrated by Adjoa Andoh. No stranger to Leckie's work (Andoh narrated the other Radch books and the author's debut fantasy, The Raven Tower), she captivates with perfectly placed inflections and superb pacing. Even listeners unfamiliar with Leckie's previous works will be spellbound by Andoh's character portraits, including Enae Athtur (sie/hir pronouns), whose Grandmaman's death thrusts hir out of comfortable complacency into a new diplomatic position. What might have been a meaningless, family-financed sinecure puts Enae on a collision course with Reet Hluid, an adoptee searching for his past, and Qven, a Presgar translator afraid to complete the next stage in their species' life cycle. Together, and with the help of a distinctly voiced supporting cast, these three challenge continuing injustice in Radch law and Presgar custom. VERDICT Gripping on its own or as a series continuation; highly recommended.--Lauren Kage
  
  Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- BookPage
  
  Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series is suffused with the kind of philosophical explorations typical of high-concept speculative fiction, including the nature of conflict, the desire for community and what it means to be human. But these books have also posed another question, one left tantalizingly unanswered: What are the Presger? The terrifying, technologically advanced but rarely seen aliens hover on the edges of the series, their former habit of ripping into spaceships and people alike held at bay by a long-standing treaty with humanity. In Translation State, Leckie’s latest standalone installment in the Radch universe, three characters approach the question of the Presger from different angles. Enae is a human diplomat tasked with finding out what happened to a missing Presger emissary. Reet is an engineer who discovers he may be the scion of the long-lost leaders of an oppressed people. And Qven is a juvenile Presger Translator, one of the strange creatures that the Presger bioengineered to communicate with species they consider to be Significant, or worthy of a diplomatic relationship. Looming over it all is the approaching renegotiation of the treaty that keeps humanity safe from the Presger. In some ways, Translation State reads like a witty, action-packed retelling of “The Measure of a Man,” a classic “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode that debates whether the android Data is legally a person or a machine. The question here is not whether the characters think of themselves as Significant, but whether the Presger will think they are. Although the explicit stakes are legal, the terms of the debate are closer to theology than anything else. The Presger are essentially gods, with their treaty of nonviolence toward Significant species a particularly abstruse gospel. It brings to mind the Tarthenal from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series, who prayed to gods only to ask them to stay far away. Every party must make decisions regarding the Significance of other species based on not only what serves their own interests but also what will prevent the Presger from tearing everything apart. Despite the existential nature of its conflict, Translation State still has an essential optimism. Every character’s motivations are understandable, even if they are not sympathetic, as each person is genuinely trying their best under challenging and potentially lethal circumstances. Translation State also has an absolute whirlwind of a plot. An aristocratic family’s fortune vanishes at a funeral in the first chapter, and later, Qven vivisects and devours multitudes of their fellow juveniles in what is, apparently, a normal part of Presger Translator development. (This book is not for the squeamish.) As ever, under all the excitement and plot machinations, Leckie uses contact among different species and cultures to discuss complicated constructs such as gender. For example, Qven’s initial confusion over how gender works mirrors the Radchaai inability to distinguish between genders in Leckie’s original Radch trilogy. However, if you are the kind of reader who wants all their questions answered, beware: I still don’t really know what the Presger are.