Last winter I told you about the Imperial Radch series ( Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy) by Ann Leckie. I told you that the series was brilliant and I stand by that. As a result, I was really looking forward to her next novel, Provenance.

Provenance was not a brilliant exercise in world-building like the trilogy Instead, it was an energetic and entertaining caper story set in the same universe, but in a complete different part, wholly removed from the intense politics of the trilogy. MInd you, it had it’s own intense politics. ^_^

Ingray is a young woman who is driven by ambition and obligation to take extraordinary risks and prove herself a worthy successor to her adoptive mother, a powerful politician on her world. To impress her mother and get a leg up over her brother, her mother’s natural son, Ingray plans on breaking one of their world’s most inafamous criminals out of jail, using him to recover “lost” property that he was accused of stealing and establishing herself as a hero and a force to be reckoned with.

It all goes wrong from the very beginning. The ship she hires to transport her “cargo” refuses to let them board, her cargo tells her that she’s sprung the wrong guy and her brother’s own scheme to gain their mother’s attention threatens to destroy hers. 

I haven’t had this much fun reading a book in ages. ^_^

The Garseddai world is rather far from the center of the Radchaai Imperium, where the Ancillary books took place. On this world, status is conveyed by “vestiges” – the physical remnants of important events – the provenance of the title is the history of the world and its government, as represented by these artifacts. Ingray’s desire to return treasured vestiges turns out to be a caper novel on a global scale. From spider mecha to spacewalks, from alien ambassadors to media clickbait, from a most satisfying conclusion (except for the shoes) to a surprising and pleasant relationship between Ingray and another young woman, this book has some of everything that I could have possibly wanted. 

The books also continues Leckie’s tradition of annoying alt-right readers. In the Imperial Radch series, she cemented her place on anti-diversity lists by defaulting to “she” as a standard pronoun. In Provenance, the entire world uses “e/em” and other ungendered language defaults. (Other than the lack of a consonant, which makes it occasionally awkward in spoken English when a word ends with a vowel, I quite like it.)

Ratings: 

Overall – 9

If you like caper stories (and who doesn’t?) I heartily recommend Provenance with no reservations. It was a load of fun in every way.