"Machineries of Empire" (starting with "Ninefox Gambit") by Yoon Ha Lee (series; 2016-2018)

 **Gorgeous, baffling at times but undeniably gorgeous, galaxy-spanning space opera inspired by Korean mythology**

Yoon Ha Lee is a ton of fun, as an author.  He actually has a fantastic collection of Young Adult novels, I'd highly recommend them (released under the "Rick Riordan Presents" line).  He actually first came to my attention for his "flash fiction", short stories usually no longer than a page or two.  Some of them even shorter:

Raven Tracks

The thing to know about ravens is that they don’t leave tracks the way other birds do.  It is not just a matter of raven feet, of tearing raven talons.

Rather, ravens leave their thoughts scattered sideways in out-of-print books, in footnotes that should not be there and that are written in extinguished languages.  Sometimes they discuss the number of coins it would take to imbalance a businessman’s greed.  Sometimes they dissect (pitilessly, that goes without saying) the libretti of operas where too many characters wear black.  They find it presumptuous.

At other times, ravens leave feather-imprints in corroded steel.  Saying that everything decays, but even doomed things can fly for a little while.

Ravens leave snarled adages in traffic jams and scratch oaths old and terrible into 1s and 0s.  (Ravens are not atheists.  They know their own lineage too well.)

Curiously, ravens are scrupulous about leaving souls unmarked.  It turns out that any weavework scars and appoggiaturas of grace you find are what you put there yourself.

 

Obviously, Yoon Ha Lee can turn a phrase.  He falls into that category of author, a lineage descended from guys like Borges, who write with over-the-top dramatic flair just because it's fun.  He didn't need to observe that "everything decays, but even doomed things can fly for a while", he didn't need to use words like "weavework" and "appoggiaturas".  He just felt like it, because he was having a good time writing.  I respect the hell out of authors like that

And yes, the Lee's background certainly comes into play here.  A trans Korean-American growing up in the South, it's no surprise that so many of Lee's novels and stories feature characters that don't quite fit in.  And watching Lee's heroes triumph, force the world to accept them, is cathartic as hell

So then, what is an author like that doing writing in as oldschool of a genre as a galaxy-spanning military science fiction novel?  Well.  Having fun.  And telling the story of some people who don't fit in

Starting with "Ninefox Gambit", Lee paints the pictures of a massive "Hexarcate", an empire that spans solar systems and enforces its rule with fantastic military technology.  Well, "technology" is a stretch.  Basically, every time the book refers to "math" or "technology", you can substitute "magic" and it works

In fact, I'll extend that caveat a bit:  If you're expecting an Iain Banks or Andy Weir style novel based on real-world science, where the author sat down and worked out the physics of the technology present, then this is not going to be that book.  Honestly, I've seen it described as "space fantasy", and that works.  Not even a Brandon Sanderson fantasy with an exhaustively detailed magic system that follows rules and strictures.  Basically, the "mathematical formations" are simply excuses for Lee to write some badass space battles in which each side deploys truly terrifying weapons across the blackness of space.  Yeah.  It's great

Enter Captain Kel Cheris, the hero of "Ninefox Gambit".  A young officer and mathematical prodigy (i.e. talented space-wizard), she is tasked with reconquering a provincial system in rebellion.  In order to assist her, she is implanted with the revenant of Shuos Jedao--a general who himself rebelled against the Hexarcate centuries prior, but was deemed too brilliant of a strategist to waste.  He was imprisoned in the "Black Coffin" so that he can be resurrected and forced to continue to serve the Hexarcate

Cheris is given the spirit of Jedao, command of a fleet, and a gun that can be used to kill Jedao with her with the instructions, "When he sounds sane and the rest of the world doesn’t, you know it’s time to pull the trigger."  That's our setup, let's see where it goes

Lee builds his world inspired by Korean mythology, with the six factions (hence the "hex" in "hexarcate") each based on a legendary creature.  Jedao himself, though it is not explicitly stated, is heavily informed by Korean spirituality.  And, as always, foxes are not to be trusted

But besides that, it's simply a really good military scifi novel.  Horrors of war a must:

The ward’s population had been estimated at 43,000 people. It wasn’t that the number was high. It wasn’t. Weniat knew what large numbers looked like. It was the ratio. Everyone dead.

(side note, while many of Yoon Ha Lee's books are explicitly queer, this series actually takes it the other direction, painting the picture of a world in which sexuality and gender have progressed to the point where it's simply not notable.  One of the main characters is gay, and it literally doesn't come up until Book 3 because it wasn't relevant to the plot.  Another character is trans, and you wouldn't even notice it if you skimmed too quickly past the two or three offhand mentions.  I think there's value in both types of queer literature:  The firebrand showing what we need to change in our world, and the visionary painting a picture of where we're trying to get.  That said, Pride Month coming soon, definitely going to be writing more about the former group!)

Oh, and of course, although most of the book is about spaceships and military operations, Lee can't resist just every so often showing off his prose.  Because he can:

At the edges of the formation, the non-pivot positions, humans and servitors both, were changing into pillars of candescent numbers. Naraucher shouldn’t have been able to recognize the numbers at this distance, but he could. Most but not all were in the high language’s vertical script. Machine Universal was identifiable as such, although he couldn’t read it. He couldn’t have justified this conviction, but he would have said that the numbers were numbers that mattered. Birthdays and festival days. A child’s shoe size. The number of times a soldier visited a crippled comrade. The specific gravity of a favorite wine. The number of bullets left in a pistol. The distance from this siege to a childhood home, remembered but never visited. The number of soldiers a Kel general was willing to sacrifice to achieve her objective.

I loved this book because of its flair and its style and its absolutely massive scope.  This book does not hold your hand, it drops you into the action and expects you to be ok with Cheris calculating a "formation" to deploy never-explained weaponry.  Every character is hiding something, and the leaders of our galactic empire are hiding the most of all (the head of the Shuos faction, which is responsible for the empire's spies and other covert operatives, is a particular joy to read.  That crafty, amoral, irrepressible, delightful bastard--at one point he's talking with another faction leader, who complains, "you should see my paperwork."  He thinks to himself, you think I don't?)

Dropped into this is our young Captain Cheris (with a devious and brilliant revenant strategist dropped into her), a kid with a decent brain for math, a sense of honor, and her own set of goals.  I highly recommend picking up this series to see how that works out

And, again, foxes are not to be trusted

I loved this book!

Thunder

Sometimes it’s about thunder, and sometimes it’s about the pale horses who thrash the sea into storm, and sometimes it’s about gunfire opening your heart.  Fruits smashed down to their glistening pits.  Petals that stain your wrists; wine that scours your throat.

I cannot give you soft hands, a sweet mouth, supple words.  But let me call out your name in the language of conflagration.  Let me bring you flensed fairytales and fossilized endearments.  Let me answer the percussion of your heart with the weapons that I know; let me answer the march.