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A review by walkerct
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
2.0
I read this book primarily because I saw that it and its sequel were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in back to back years. One of my reading goals this year is to read all of the 2018 nominees, so I decided to tackle this one first so that I would be ready to take on [b:Raven Stratagem|30691976|Raven Stratagem (The Machineries of Empire, #2)|Yoon Ha Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466524955s/30691976.jpg|51237351] in a couple of months. Needless to say, I am now much less enthused about this prospect.
A lot of people have compared this book to [a:Ann Leckie|3365457|Ann Leckie|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1402526383p2/3365457.jpg]'s Imperial Radch series. Granted, there are a number of similarities in regard to setting (an expansive galactic empire with a rigid social structure) and protagonist (a once loyal soldier of that empire that begins to doubt its mission and their place in it). There are even some similarities in the way the novels tackle gender identity, though it's much more important to the Radch novels than to this one. However the biggest difference, and the reason that I find the Radch series infinitely more enjoyable, is how the characters are handled. That is to say that Leckie grounds her novels in well-thought out character motivations while Lee seems to have forgone creating any interesting characters in favor of going all-in on the sci-fi military hardware aspects of the story. I'll come back to my problems with the characters in a bit.
Simply put, 70% of the creative effort of this books seems to have gone into thinking up cool sounding weapons. It's got threshold winnowers, kaleidoscope bombs, amputation guns, logic grenades, scorch pistols, directional storm generators, fungal canisters, calendrical swords, dire cannons, erasure cannons, shatter grenades, carrion bombs, invariant ice, and that's honestly just a small sample of them. A lot of the book reads more like the description of a FPS DLC weapons pack than anything else. To be honest, this book would probably make for a pretty awesome video game. Lee is very inventive when it comes to the technology of the world.
All of that technology is dependent on the society adhering to a strict calendar system decided upon by the Hexarchate, a group of six rulers who represent the factions that make up the society's government, military, etc. Committing heresy against the calendar system has very real consequences, affecting the way that certain technologies function, which means that the Hexarchate has a vested interest in maintaining ironclad control over society. Each faction has a distinct ethos and distinct skills. The Kel are extremely loyal and disciplined, and make up the bulk of the fighting force; the Shuos are clever and manipulative and handle intelligence and espionage, etc. These factions cooperate and clash in predictable ways. The appearance is of a deep, complex ruling system ala the Seven Kingdoms in the ASOIAF series, but to me it all came across as little more than window dressing. Sure, it sounds nice and complex, but a lot of that is due to the jargon-y nature of Lee's writing. Once you strip that away you realize that the complexity is more implied than shown, and it seems to have little impact on the plot of this book, though hopefully that changes in the later books.
One of the most polarizing aspects of the book is the lack of exposition/clarification of the calendrical system and how it alters the reality of the world. The book really just drops you into the middle of things without any kind of handy glossary or expository dialogue to provide context. Personally, I prefer books that force the reader to figure things out as they go along, rather than slowing down the plot with often clunky explanations (looking at you, [b:Ready Player One|9969571|Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)|Ernest Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500930947s/9969571.jpg|14863741]). That being said, the extreme obscurity of the language used warranted more explanation than was given.
I could have forgiven the book its obtuseness were it not for its single weakest point, the characters. Kel Cheris is by far one of the least interesting SF protagonists I have ever come across. Aside for her love of dramas and her soft spot towards servitors (helper robots) we learn next to nothing of note about her. I kept thinking that as the book progressed that more of her personality would show through, but if anything the opposite happened. It seems like Lee himself got tired of her, because starting around the halfway point we spend more time watching what random soldiers are doing and learning about Shuos Jedao's backstory. It's pretty obvious that Shuos Jedao is the only character that Lee really cares about, and that all he wanted from Cheris was for her to serve as a half-assed foil for him. I know a lot of reviewers point out the Jedao/Cheris conversations as one of the book's highlights, and I can see why, but I felt that they largely fell flat. I think there was a real opportunity to showcase the deep history of the society and how culture and people change over time, but instead their conversations are almost completely concerned with military tactics, and Jedao ends up sounding exactly like most of the modern day characters sound. It's a total waste. For an example of a similar character dynamic to Kel/Cheris that is handled way better, I would check out [b:Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening|29396738|Monstress, Vol. 1 Awakening (Monstress, #1)|Marjorie M. Liu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471648131s/29396738.jpg|51531861]. Finally, the villain of the book is extremely disappointing. For the vast majority of the book they are relegated to a series of catty communications between them and the leader of the heresy. I found no reason to care about them at all, and the final confrontation (if you can even call it that) seemed like an afterthought intended largely to clear the slate for the sequel.
And that's maybe the biggest disappointment about the book. As some of the other reviewers pointed out, at the conclusion you realize that the entire story is a setup for the NEXT book, and pretty much everything that happened in this book is inconsequential. I really hope Raven Strategem improves on the character work, otherwise I'm going to be back with a similarly disappointed review in a couple of months.
A lot of people have compared this book to [a:Ann Leckie|3365457|Ann Leckie|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1402526383p2/3365457.jpg]'s Imperial Radch series. Granted, there are a number of similarities in regard to setting (an expansive galactic empire with a rigid social structure) and protagonist (a once loyal soldier of that empire that begins to doubt its mission and their place in it). There are even some similarities in the way the novels tackle gender identity, though it's much more important to the Radch novels than to this one. However the biggest difference, and the reason that I find the Radch series infinitely more enjoyable, is how the characters are handled. That is to say that Leckie grounds her novels in well-thought out character motivations while Lee seems to have forgone creating any interesting characters in favor of going all-in on the sci-fi military hardware aspects of the story. I'll come back to my problems with the characters in a bit.
Simply put, 70% of the creative effort of this books seems to have gone into thinking up cool sounding weapons. It's got threshold winnowers, kaleidoscope bombs, amputation guns, logic grenades, scorch pistols, directional storm generators, fungal canisters, calendrical swords, dire cannons, erasure cannons, shatter grenades, carrion bombs, invariant ice, and that's honestly just a small sample of them. A lot of the book reads more like the description of a FPS DLC weapons pack than anything else. To be honest, this book would probably make for a pretty awesome video game. Lee is very inventive when it comes to the technology of the world.
All of that technology is dependent on the society adhering to a strict calendar system decided upon by the Hexarchate, a group of six rulers who represent the factions that make up the society's government, military, etc. Committing heresy against the calendar system has very real consequences, affecting the way that certain technologies function, which means that the Hexarchate has a vested interest in maintaining ironclad control over society. Each faction has a distinct ethos and distinct skills. The Kel are extremely loyal and disciplined, and make up the bulk of the fighting force; the Shuos are clever and manipulative and handle intelligence and espionage, etc. These factions cooperate and clash in predictable ways. The appearance is of a deep, complex ruling system ala the Seven Kingdoms in the ASOIAF series, but to me it all came across as little more than window dressing. Sure, it sounds nice and complex, but a lot of that is due to the jargon-y nature of Lee's writing. Once you strip that away you realize that the complexity is more implied than shown, and it seems to have little impact on the plot of this book, though hopefully that changes in the later books.
One of the most polarizing aspects of the book is the lack of exposition/clarification of the calendrical system and how it alters the reality of the world. The book really just drops you into the middle of things without any kind of handy glossary or expository dialogue to provide context. Personally, I prefer books that force the reader to figure things out as they go along, rather than slowing down the plot with often clunky explanations (looking at you, [b:Ready Player One|9969571|Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)|Ernest Cline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1500930947s/9969571.jpg|14863741]). That being said, the extreme obscurity of the language used warranted more explanation than was given.
I could have forgiven the book its obtuseness were it not for its single weakest point, the characters. Kel Cheris is by far one of the least interesting SF protagonists I have ever come across. Aside for her love of dramas and her soft spot towards servitors (helper robots) we learn next to nothing of note about her. I kept thinking that as the book progressed that more of her personality would show through, but if anything the opposite happened. It seems like Lee himself got tired of her, because starting around the halfway point we spend more time watching what random soldiers are doing and learning about Shuos Jedao's backstory. It's pretty obvious that Shuos Jedao is the only character that Lee really cares about, and that all he wanted from Cheris was for her to serve as a half-assed foil for him. I know a lot of reviewers point out the Jedao/Cheris conversations as one of the book's highlights, and I can see why, but I felt that they largely fell flat. I think there was a real opportunity to showcase the deep history of the society and how culture and people change over time, but instead their conversations are almost completely concerned with military tactics, and Jedao ends up sounding exactly like most of the modern day characters sound. It's a total waste. For an example of a similar character dynamic to Kel/Cheris that is handled way better, I would check out [b:Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening|29396738|Monstress, Vol. 1 Awakening (Monstress, #1)|Marjorie M. Liu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471648131s/29396738.jpg|51531861]. Finally, the villain of the book is extremely disappointing. For the vast majority of the book they are relegated to a series of catty communications between them and the leader of the heresy. I found no reason to care about them at all, and the final confrontation (if you can even call it that) seemed like an afterthought intended largely to clear the slate for the sequel.
And that's maybe the biggest disappointment about the book. As some of the other reviewers pointed out, at the conclusion you realize that the entire story is a setup for the NEXT book, and pretty much everything that happened in this book is inconsequential. I really hope Raven Strategem improves on the character work, otherwise I'm going to be back with a similarly disappointed review in a couple of months.