Ninefox Gambit

Reading the first couple of chapters of this book is like being thrown into the deep end of a pool and asked not just to swim but to do some calculus homework while you’re at it. The setting just doesn’t seem to make any sense, physically or morally. But I kept treading water until this book had a grip on me that wouldn’t let go. By the time the concept of “Calendrical Heresy” came up, I couldn’t put it down.

In this book, spaceships (and their horrifying, inhumane weapons) run on forces that depend on the calendar. Change the calendar… show more.

When I received Ninefox Gambit for Christmas, I have to say that I was blown away. What I loved the most about it wasn’t just that Yoon Ha Lee dropped me in the middle of a war and hit the ground running (from lazer blasts!) The tactician Shuos Jedao leads Cheris into an inner battle that turns out to be even more consequential than the war itself. And when finally the question arises of “who is right” in the conflict, something that the good soldier Cheris has never asked herself before, the answer depends on who’s answering. Cheris, like all… show more.

Take a deep dive into a universe where calendars and math are key to power. Does it feel surreal and confusing at first? Yes, but that is all part of the new and innovative charm that does away with traditional military sci-fi and reinvents the genre. While the worldbuilding is amazing and mind-boggling, this is a novel driven by its characters. The cast is big and diverse, sporting main characters who are gay, bi and ace, transgender and nonbinary. If you long for a new take on sci-fi, morally ambiguous characters, and kick-ass queers, I recommend this book to you.

Disgraced general Kel Cheris must work with the undead, unstable genius Shuos Jedao to defeat a fortress of calendrical heretics. Lee's fantastically inventive worldbuilding supports some of the most surreal, creative battle scenes anywhere in science fiction; the tension between Cheris and Jedao, not to mention between Cheris's loyalty to the galaxy-ruling hexarchate and its vicious, tyrannical means of maintaining control, propel this multi-award-nominated space opera forward quickly.