Ursula

Lake of Souls is a collection of Ann Leckie's short fiction, divided into three sections: stories about the Radch, stories in the same universe as Raven Tower, and independent universes. The title story "Lake of Souls" (a novelette) is new; other stories have appeared in various places (as always with short fiction, some are easier to track down than others).

Leckie often experiments with point of view and different writing styles, and I enjoyed comparing the ways that individual stories emphasize one strand or another of her multitudinous interests. There's an undercurrent of horror in the Ancillary books, and some of the shorts (particularly "Footprints") bring it to the surface. "Lake of Souls" mixes gooey alien creepiness with a space-opera take on rapacious corporations that feels a lot like Murderbot or Leckie's recent short for Amazon, "The Long Game"; the aliens, as one might expect, are outstanding. "Hesperia and Glory" riffs on planetary romance; it has a nineteenth-century-style frame story with the intriguing refrain, "There is not now, nor has there ever been, a well in my cellar." I was glad to discover the layers of scheming, gamesmanship, and Breq's characteristic decisiveness in "She Commands Me and I Obey," an Ancillary-universe story I knew only by reputation. But my favorites are the Raven Tower stories: the rule that gods dare not speak a truth they cannot guarantee makes for fascinating puzzles, and I always enjoy the opportunity to explore other corners of this world.

(I read this collection as a Netgalley ARC; in the US, it comes out on April 2.)