Ann Leckie does some incredible tricks in her Ancillary Trilogy. First, she shows us what the world would sound like if feminine pronouns were the default. This is both disconcerting and wonderful. It poses a challenge to readers to reconsider how and why we gender characters in our minds and what impact that has on our perception of their actions. Her second trick is, at times, even harder to imagine and very difficult to explain. Imagine seeing the world through thousands of pairs of eyes, united by a single consciousness, while also holding a sense of individuality. Leckie takes these seemingly disparate ideas and weaves them into a beautiful tapestry set in a region of space both familiar and alien to those of us on Earth.