Ninefox Gambit

I had no idea what to expect when I went into Ninefox Gambit, and it was extraordinarily confusing for the first... 100 pages or so. The book begins in media res during a big future/magic infantry battle except the magic might be high-level mathematics? In the first 20 pages alone are going to be puzzling your way through deliberately alien concepts like "calendrical rot" and "linearizable force multiplier formations" and "threshold winnowers". These aren't presented a friendly, "here's a new word, we will explain it now, or at least provide some context way." They are presented as things everyone takes for granted, and if you're lucky, in the next 20 or 50 pages you will gather enough contextual knowledge to piece together what they actually mean in the world of the book.

That could all be a really bad thing, but ultimately it ended up being kind of like a fun puzzle.

Ninefox Gambit (and the following two books in the Machineries of Empire trilogy) ultimately pays off all the weird math/magic stuff. It ends up being an extremely powerful metaphor for the systems that underlay all imperial powers. It's kind of like LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", but writ large as a space opera. I give this book four stars, though I would give the series as a whole five? The series as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I like the first book more in retrospect having read the next two books in the series.

Not only a good novel, this is also a window into an enormous world in conflict, and it begins in media res, with brutal and confusing warfare. At the center of the story is Kel Cheris, an infantry captain and brilliant mathematician, and Shuos Jedao, a disgraced general from half a millennium ago, who only wins. Because of his knack for victory, Jedao is resurrected by a despotic empire again and again, and each time needs a living being to which he is attached. This time it is Cheris, and it is the chance Jedao has been waiting for!

What are they fighting over? Calendrical heresy! That likely means nothing to you if you haven't read the story, but it suffices to say that a calendar is a set of rules, "fueled by the coherence of our beliefs." In other words, it's a society-wide convention and must be adhered to for the empire's technologies and governance to function.

I love the vastness of the story. The wealth of exotic peoples: Rahal (big bosses), Andan ($$$), Nirai (tech people), Vidona (judges and enforcers), Shuo (game strategists), Kel (loyal warriors), and the borgs (servitors). www.yoonhalee.com/?p=836

I originally rated the book 3 stars because it is so DENSE with world-building, I had trouble interpreting the story's value. After a few days (and halfway through Raven Stratagem), I realize it was much better than my first impression. It needed to percolate in my echo chamber.

It is much more than a revolution-vs-empire tale because underlying everything is a non-magical, magic system (this is more fantasy than sci-fi despite all the theming), one based on universal enforcement of calendrical rules. This theme is pervasive and coherent, and (at least to me) somewhat disconcerting, until the aha! moment. It's genius how the realization makes the elusive story comprehendible. I'm looking forward to reading the next ones. :-)