Ninefox Gambit: 1 (The Machineries of Empire, 1)

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This puts her in hot water with the Kel (general army faction), who do not appreciate her dip into quasi-heretical formations, and Cheris is at risk of being shipped off to the Vidona (the, uh, ‘re-education ‘ faction). Instead, Jedao plunged the entirety of his force into the gyre and activated the first threshold winnowers, known ever since for their deadliness. A book of profanities written in every futile shade of red the human body had ever devised, its pages upended over the battlefield from horizon to horizon. Plus, her conversations with Jedao help a little in making sense of the world, as he has been in prison torture hibernation for centuries and doesn’t know everything about the state of affairs.

These mechanical, animal-shaped creatures provided hawk and snake-eyed views of the ships Cheris serves on and the action going on around her, and they are as dedicated to serving humanity as they are eye-rolly at human idiosyncrasies. I am beyond happy that this book is a Hugo Award finalist, although it makes my choice on how to vote that much harder. To make it worse, it sounded like the narrator recorded the attributives separately from the dialog and then they were inserted where needed because every single "she said" has exactly the same tone and reflection. Despite this rosy outlook, though, I remain pragmatic enough to realise that even Star Trek’s reality is something that will be difficult, if not outright impossible, for humans to achieve.Political machinations have found her brevetted to general and saddled with a ghost-like companion named Shuos Jedao. Ninefox Gambit received the 2017 Locus Award for Best First Novel, [4] and was nominated for the 2016 Nebula and 2017 Hugo Awards for Best Novel, and the 2017 Clarke award.

Cheris must use his knowledge of tactics to take the fortress, while guarding against any deceptions that might get her whole army killed. And this, I think, is what I hope you focus on when you read the reviews, mine included, and decide if Ninefox Gambit is for you. It's all powered by a highly complex system of mathematics, which Lee doesn't go too deeply into except to say that there's lots of math involved. Lack of belief in the 6-integer calendar on the Fortress of Scattered Needles has led to a “rot” which is upsetting the magic system in other parts of the solar system. And as the siege wears on and they spend more time together, Cheris begins to wonder if all that she knows about Jedao is actually true – and if such questions are not a sign of her own, impending madness.Fortunately it is rather hard to argue against the standing of Dune, which is considered one of the great sci-fi classics. There was some interest in the relationship between the protagonist and the dead general inserted into her mind, but this was explored less than I would have expected. The ‘magic’ here is that people and society can work on changing the laws of physics: but only if everyone goes along with it.

It’s one that I definitely suggest reading a sample of it first, so you’re not sitting through almost 11 hours of text utterly hating yourself. Whether or not they praise the stubborn dearth of exposition, they always talk about wanting to know more. One thing that reading the whole set of books together really brings to light is how slowly set up the whole story arc is.Every single review I’ve seen for this book, every article about it written by people whose tastes I share or opinions I trust have praised this book to the high heavens, some citing it as good as or even better than Ann Leckie’s debut Ancillary Justice. If you have read this book or other reviews of it, you might expect me to ask for more details about how the calendrical technology of the hexarchate works. I still don’t understand (and I suspect I’m not meant to) how that translates into the efficacy of certain weapons and not others, how individuals breaking away from a calendar can cause “calendrical rot,” and how the importance of mathematics ties into all this. The pornography sampler had moved onto something less athletic… and what on earth where they doing with all those candles?