Ancillary Mercy

This book was the perfect conclusion to a trilogy that started off as a tale of vengeance and became so much more. There are people figuring out who they are. There are people figuring out what it means to be a person. There's an empire that has grown to large and is starting to crumble. There are people figuring out how to take advantage of that for their own gains. There are small stories writ large and a focus on doing what you can even if it seems small because there are ripple effects you can't sleep.

 But the reason that this book is going to stick with me is that it had a perfect ending. I can even share it with you without spoiling the trilogy, which is part of it's perfection.

Entertainments nearly always end with triumph or disaster - happiness achieved, or total, tragic defeat precluding any hope of it. But there is always more after the ending - always the next morning and the next, always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, large as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe, that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Every ending is, from another angle, not really an ending.

I read that at the exact moment I needed it. And moments like that are the whole reason I read.