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A review by cryo_guy
Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-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? No
3.75
After a lukewarm start on this trilogy with one friend, I got another friend hooked and she encouraged me to get to the end because "I hate it when I don't know what happens." WELL, I'm not as motivated by conclusions as a reader, but I have enjoyed Lee's unique and innovative approach to the sci-fi/fantasy/military scifi blended genre. At first it was about the creativity and the push to test the reader's imagination, but this trilogy actually gets more straightforward as you read.
So I'll go over some of the stuff I liked and didn't. I think the coolest thing about these books was the world-building. A majority of the pages are actually spent on developing the space opera plot and having mostly accessible character scenes, but there is a lot of unique stuff going on in the background. The first book front loads this and is purposefully defamiliarizing, but as I said, these elements are less prominent in books 2 and 3. As far as the space opera plot goes you can easily see influences from star wars and dune, but the dressing is an all new mostly Asian inspired pastiche. I think the single most innovative element is the idea of technology operating by means of belief and ritual-and effects of tech, called "exotic" in the novels, activating accordingly. This presents a perfect context for the finale where such a system is turned on its head and the rules are rewritten to depend on consent (an always pertinent topic nowadays). I'm being a little flip, but its also good haha.
The characters are also pretty interesting and well-developed, but I liked some of them more than others. There's generally a good deal of clever social commentary that doesn't need to get heady to make a point; something I would consider talented writing. And of course, we all love the robots and their enhanced role in the latter 2 books.
And the plot itself is interesting but accessible in the space opera way. I feared that it might lean too hard into the twist ending, but it doesnt at all which was very refreshing for me. I hate it when authors don't trust their plots enough to resolve them without resorting to some radically alien device or run of the mill deus ex machina. But here we have a solid plot that resolves quite well.
One of the most impressive things to me was how his take on military sci-fi redeemed a genre that I had completely given up on.
I docked the score of this book because I enjoyed the other books a little more. I missed some of the weird defamiliarization from the first book. I also think that as far as the plot goes, while the worldbuilding excels and lifts things up, the resolution to this space opera mess does sort of drag it back down to the mundane-which I can only say is both good and bad for me. And a new character introduced in this book was not the most compelling to me.
Otherwise, I'd say this is a fun series, definitely worth reading to challenge one's imagination-at least at first-and worth finishing to see how Lee takes it to its conclusion. Maybe the highest praise I could give is exactly that: even if I told you how things end, the book is written such that the reading of it is worth it no matter your foreknowledge. Maybe I'll check out his collections of short stories also set in the same world.
So I'll go over some of the stuff I liked and didn't. I think the coolest thing about these books was the world-building. A majority of the pages are actually spent on developing the space opera plot and having mostly accessible character scenes, but there is a lot of unique stuff going on in the background. The first book front loads this and is purposefully defamiliarizing, but as I said, these elements are less prominent in books 2 and 3. As far as the space opera plot goes you can easily see influences from star wars and dune, but the dressing is an all new mostly Asian inspired pastiche. I think the single most innovative element is the idea of technology operating by means of belief and ritual-and effects of tech, called "exotic" in the novels, activating accordingly. This presents a perfect context for the finale where such a system is turned on its head and the rules are rewritten to depend on consent (an always pertinent topic nowadays). I'm being a little flip, but its also good haha.
The characters are also pretty interesting and well-developed, but I liked some of them more than others. There's generally a good deal of clever social commentary that doesn't need to get heady to make a point; something I would consider talented writing. And of course, we all love the robots and their enhanced role in the latter 2 books.
And the plot itself is interesting but accessible in the space opera way. I feared that it might lean too hard into the twist ending, but it doesnt at all which was very refreshing for me. I hate it when authors don't trust their plots enough to resolve them without resorting to some radically alien device or run of the mill deus ex machina. But here we have a solid plot that resolves quite well.
One of the most impressive things to me was how his take on military sci-fi redeemed a genre that I had completely given up on.
I docked the score of this book because I enjoyed the other books a little more. I missed some of the weird defamiliarization from the first book. I also think that as far as the plot goes, while the worldbuilding excels and lifts things up, the resolution to this space opera mess does sort of drag it back down to the mundane-which I can only say is both good and bad for me. And a new character introduced in this book was not the most compelling to me.
Otherwise, I'd say this is a fun series, definitely worth reading to challenge one's imagination-at least at first-and worth finishing to see how Lee takes it to its conclusion. Maybe the highest praise I could give is exactly that: even if I told you how things end, the book is written such that the reading of it is worth it no matter your foreknowledge. Maybe I'll check out his collections of short stories also set in the same world.