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reebeee's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Good book if you enjoy sci-fi warfare and military strategy—as other reviews mention, it requires a tolerance for a wide array of made-up terms. Also as other reviews have noted, Cheris could have used some more development—we don’t get much of a backstory, or motivation, or relationships for her. She’s mostly a foil for Jedao and a stand-in for the reader in her reactions. She’s not annoying though, and I appreciate that one of her defining features is loyalty, which is fun to play with when so many narratives start with rebellious protagonists.
The side characters are vivid and interesting, but ultimately don’t play large or long-lasting roles in the narrative not least because practically all of them die at the end of the book . I appreciated the way that Lee emphasized the brutality of war and the abruptness of death—some of the passages reminded me of the Iliad in that sense. But a book is a narrative, after all, and it would be nice for at least one interesting side character other than Kujen to have lived. Not every side character has to be gun-fodder to demonstrate the futility of war, and any plot- or world-building potential of characters like Nerevor, Vahenz, and Zai remains unused.
I enjoyed this book's premise and characters, and I'll probably end up reading the sequels, but in the end, Ninefox's potential was more promising than its actuality.
The side characters are vivid and interesting, but ultimately don’t play large or long-lasting roles in the narrative
I enjoyed this book's premise and characters, and I'll probably end up reading the sequels, but in the end, Ninefox's potential was more promising than its actuality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and War
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Animal death
intoblossom's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Mostly for the worldbuilding.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Gore, and Gun violence
Moderate: Genocide and Torture
Minor: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Suicide
mahiyaa's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
confusedmuse's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, War, Blood, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide
Moderate: Body horror, Dysphoria, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Confinement, Colonisation, Grief, Murder, Self harm, and Torture
ailsaod's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book took a bit of getting into - the first chapter is set in a battle scene in which horrible things that are both gory and confusing happen to the soldiers. It took quite a while to figure out what the deal was with this book (when people say it is ancillary justice crossed with divergent they are certainly right!). This combination sounds improbable and when I first saw it did not fill me with joy but it is more like Ancillary Justice (in that the setting is a massive evil space empire and everyone is queer) with the faction system being a little more complex than that of Divergent and there is a bunch of stuff a bit like astrology? I'm not a fan of astrology so those elements took a bit of getting used to. Lee also has a somewhat disorienting way of progressing a story which was the only thing that stopped me from giving this book five stars. Sometimes scenes or joins between scenes were a little disorienting or I found it difficult to visualise what was happening with the tactics.
However, despite these obstacles in the way of my enjoyment I still had a great time reading this book. Something about Lee's characters made me get very attached to them in very short amounts of time - even minor side characters - so when they inevitably met a nasty end I was like :( . Cheris and Jedao are the main characters and I liked both of them (for very different reasons!). Jedao is terrifying! From the beginning we know his reputation while his motivations are very much unknown and this combined with him basically being a ghost make him a little scary already. Then Lee wrote a couple of terrifying scenes and the I was feeling just as scared as Cheris! Jedao is the kind of person MCU Loki wishes he was! I think Lee does a good job explaining why Jedao went on his murder spree without forcing the reader to sympathise.
I would advise anyone who doesn't like reading about genocide, weapons of mass destruction (and their gory effects on squishy humans) to maybe skip this one as although the way people are killed is very abstract it is still quite disturbing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and War
Moderate: Body horror, Colonisation, Genocide, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Torture
alexerz's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Sexual assault, Panic attacks/disorders, and Murder
bookswithdizz's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Gore
Minor: Sexual assault
bluelibrarian's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Gore
Minor: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Genocide
moot's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Very excellent book. Wild ride and great commentary on war and fascism(?). Devastating.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
Moderate: Sexual assault
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
The worldbuilding in NINEFOX GAMBIT is deep and immersive and very detailed in a way that sometimes was a little overwhelming, but the dynamic between the MC and her shadowy guide help to make sure that the importance of something was explained even if the details or dizzying and arcane and fantastic, the characters weren’t worried about making sure I would know what was going on, but the structure of the book itself and the setup for the main characters combined to make sure that even if I didn’t know what a word or detail meant in this world, I knew why it mattered. “Hard sci-fi“ is a phrase that almost feels appropriate here, but is wholly inadequate to summarize the way the little details makes this book shine. It’s hard sci-fi from a different universe, with all the precision and technical jargon from a world where the way someone stands in a formation aligns with their calendar to create devastating beauty and destruction in a battle, where manipulating holy days can change everything.
My favorite thing in this book is I now get to add “calendrical rot” to my vocabulary, I don’t know how I will use it after this but I’m very glad to have it now. My second favorite thing is the way that behavioral manipulation and mind games are shown in such a subtle and empathetic way. I was so immersed in the MC‘s perspective that while I trusted her as a narrator, my understanding of what was going on was very tied to how much she did or did not figure out about what her shadowy companion was doing, since we never get his perspective. Their conversations are fascinating, the way they jointly and separately have to navigate the MC’s ability to have conversations with other people led to some great moments, and it meant that wow there were times that had pretty straightforward delivery of a lot of information, they only technically fell in the category of info dump because they were things that naturally needed to be explained. Even the little moments where the companion comments on the way something has changed was used artfully so that the reader could care more about what it Is even though the MC needed to learn what it Was.
I’m a big fan of interstitial chapters and the ones here are fantastic examples of world-building and subtle character development. They’re funny and add up to be very informative but the story will still make sense if you don’t pay attention to them. They’re a window into a perspective that’s very different from the MC, and this is used in a combination of explicit and implicit world-building to show literally what someone says about their actions and to demonstrate other ways of thinking about events shown in the main chapters.
My favorite thing in this book is I now get to add “calendrical rot” to my vocabulary, I don’t know how I will use it after this but I’m very glad to have it now. My second favorite thing is the way that behavioral manipulation and mind games are shown in such a subtle and empathetic way. I was so immersed in the MC‘s perspective that while I trusted her as a narrator, my understanding of what was going on was very tied to how much she did or did not figure out about what her shadowy companion was doing, since we never get his perspective. Their conversations are fascinating, the way they jointly and separately have to navigate the MC’s ability to have conversations with other people led to some great moments, and it meant that wow there were times that had pretty straightforward delivery of a lot of information, they only technically fell in the category of info dump because they were things that naturally needed to be explained. Even the little moments where the companion comments on the way something has changed was used artfully so that the reader could care more about what it Is even though the MC needed to learn what it Was.
I’m a big fan of interstitial chapters and the ones here are fantastic examples of world-building and subtle character development. They’re funny and add up to be very informative but the story will still make sense if you don’t pay attention to them. They’re a window into a perspective that’s very different from the MC, and this is used in a combination of explicit and implicit world-building to show literally what someone says about their actions and to demonstrate other ways of thinking about events shown in the main chapters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Body horror, Violence, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Child death, Torture, Sexual assault, and Suicide
CW for ableism, panic attacks/disorders, gore, body horror, violence, torture (not depicted), sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, suicide (backstory), murder, child death (backstory), death.