I just reread this trilogy again recently, between other things.

I've seen a number of criticisms of the differences in pacing/scoping between the three novels, from people who interpreted Ancillary Justice as "Breq's epic quest to kill god" and the latter two as "Breq doodles around with local politicians and Presger Translators".

I appreciate the different framing of each novel, and particularly that events other than The Grand Struggle for Control of The Radch are given focus - for one thing, it makes room to tell other stories in the universe, like Provenance and Translation State.

But I think it also indicates that the primary storyline in Ancillary Justice wasn't Breq/Seivarden/present, it was Justice of Toren/Awn/past – instead of the Shis'urna stuff being backstory for the main events, the Breq stuff was an epilogue to the main events, and in that light, the scoping of the three books isn't so different.