Ann Leckie does historical romance! Well, not exactly, but much like how the Ancillary books aren’t exactly space opera, Translation State borrows the well-worn tropes of Austen and her heirs to tell stories about the challenge of creating a self and how inseparable we are from others. It’s smaller, more intimate, and perhaps less ambitious than the earlier trilogy, more Very Special Episode than blockbuster, but succeeds on its own terms.

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On the surface, this is a novel centred on the Presger Translators, who liaise for their alien creators like angels for their God in the Abrahamic religions; they’re uncanny and occasionally lethal, but people-shaped enough to run PR for the ineffable. They also occasionally fall. It’s a welcome evolution out of their role in the Ancillary books as unhinged comic relief, though we mostly lose the bloodthirsty non-sequiturs that made Translator Dlique and her colleagues so much “fun” in a Harley Quinn way.

Instead, we get into the weeds of Translator micro-society, whose Thrones and Dominions-esque hierarchy nicely echoes 19th century British class structure. This naturally opens the door to a gaggle of Regency romance conventions: we’ve got intolerable arranged not-exactly-marriages, ruined not-exactly-women, and the oppressive not-exactly-family name to live up to. Even the normal humans are mostly heirs to bankrupt ancient peerages or hidden nobility, but these are all homages that are worn lightly.

What Leckie, like Austen, is serious about is relationships, and they cover the whole gamut. Found family and blood ties and ethnic affiliations abut platonic friendships, suffocating codependency, loving marriages, violence, violation and very literal predation, sometimes all hybridised together. It’s a lot to take in, and not every connection gets the nuance it deserves, but Leckie navigates her social web with humanity and a welcome emphasis on self-definition and consent.

Those themes, as much as the setting, are what tie Translation State naturally to the Ancillary books and on to their many genre descendants, particularly Murderbot (at a minimum, Leckie owes Martha Wells a royalty check for the Pirate Exiles of the Death Moon TV show concept). Translation State doesn’t offer anything remotely as groundbreaking as say, gender-blind enslaved AI hive intelligence battleships, but it’s not trying to — this is a book where even the peak of the action is confined to meeting rooms and a few small hallways, after all. It looks unassuming, but its insides conceal multitudes.