Yoon Ha Lee

Machineries Of Empire, the most exciting science fiction trilogy of the decade, reaches its astonishing conclusion! When Shuos Jedao wakes up for the first time, several things go wrong. His few memories tell him that he's a seventeen-year-old cadet--but his body belongs to a man decades older. Hexarch Nirai Kujen orders Jedao to reconquer the fractured hexarchate on his behalf even though Jedao has no memory of ever being a soldier, let alone a general. Surely a knack for video games doesn't qualify you to take charge of an army? Soon Jedao learns the situation is even worse. The Kel soldiers under his command may be compelled to obey him, but they hate him thanks to a massacre he can't remember committing. Kujen's friendliness can't hide the fact that he's a tyrant. And what's worse, Jedao and Kujen are being hunted by an enemy who knows more about Jedao and his crimes than he does himself...

Revenant Gun

altlovesbooks

"You’re not supposed to spend on frivolous shit, but what good is life without some frivolous shit?"

Here we are, the end of a trilogy I greatly enjoyed. It's a testament to how intriguing I found the series that I finished all three books within a span of six months, because I never read series books back-to-back. This was a wild ride, and on the other side I'm still not sure I could explain some of the concepts going on, but I still really enjoyed it.

I won't go into story details, because basically anything I can say about the plot would be spoilers for this book and the series as a whole. Suffice it to say that things get a bit weird(er?), there's new POVs introduced for this book, and some are more endearing than others. If Hemiola could get her own spinoff series, I'd be super happy, thanks. I'm slightly disappointed in the ending, but I guess I can see how things wrapped up.

I do feel like, as tight and clean as the second book felt in terms of plot and progression, this third book felt like a bit of a regression. The story is a bit fragmented for large chunks of the book, and it's hard to see initially how things are supposed to fit. The ending felt a bit rushed and blended together to get everything to work, which felt a bit different than the endings of the other two books. 

I still would recommend this series to anyone willing to take on a bit of a challenge in terms of sci-fi terminology and concepts. Jedao is a delight and a treasure.

Mundy Otto Reimer

Finally finished the Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee, which is composed of Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, and Revenant Gun. There are two other books that I've yet to read that also take place in this universe, that of Extracurricular Activities which occurs before the events in Ninefox Gambit, and Hexarchate Stories which are a series of short stories that supposedly takes place throughout the original novels. 

I originally started Ninefox Gambit when it was first published and it didn't sit well with me (for reasons I'll elaborate on later), but I was really glad I picked it back up again recently and stuck through it for the later novels. The story takes place in a world far in the future where an intergalactic empire is struggling to keep itself together. And keeping it together is more than just politics. It requires a collective belief and agreement to use a particular system of mathematics, as well as submission and consensus to follow the High Calendar. Yup, you read that right. If you don't follow the correct math or calendar you're labeled a heretic! Then you are forcibly "re-educated" or most likely exterminated in a campaign of genocide against your people. If you are particularly lucky you might even get your own holiday labeled after you and undergo ritualistic public torture. 

So why the strict demand of adherence to something as strange and abstract as a mathematical system and calendar? Well it turns out that the technology in this empire requires a consensus on the use of math and adherence to the one and only (and changing) High Calendar, and without the latter, they'll become useless. And the technology that takes center stage in this book is certainly one that preoccupies most empires, that of travel and warfare. From this we can see the culture that results, one of monopoly and hegemony of thought, whose main purpose is to constantly expand and stamp out any dissenters. 

With this knowledge we can almost sketch out the characters and competing motives that will take center stage. This is a story that appeals to the inner heretic, the underdog fighting the system with personal experiences that show there is something corrupt or wrong baked into the very fabric of their culture's assumptions and societal arrangements. Whether that extends to religion, gender, ethnic background, immigrants, government, academics, etc, we can see what kind of story Lee wants to write and who they are trying to appeal to.

Character-wise this story follows Jedao, a military general known for his excellent psychological tactics, and more importantly for never having lost a single battle. He's so essential that his consciousness has been preserved and turned into a weapon to be downloaded into a person and resurrected time and time again throughout the ages. The only problem is that he seems to have gone mad for no apparent reason, even slaughtering his own crew. We get to witness his latest revival as he is downloaded or "anchored" into a person with a notable conscience, Ajewen Cheris, whom also happens to be a top-notch mathematician (of which the latter is an important fact when living in a society ran on mathematical oppression!) Most of the first book is driven by the dialogue and conflicts between these two as they come to terms (mis-)understanding each other. The second book follows this up with some conflict with a rival civilization and military hivemind, and the last book being the most fascinating in that we explore more of the history of Jedao and who has been resurrecting him throughout the ages, of which we come to learn has been another fellow immortal named Kujen. 

With that said, I know the story centers around Jedao, but one of the cons of these books is that some of the interesting characters that are developed are then suddenly dropped. Colonel Ragath and his background as a historian was one of them, as well as Agent Tseya, both of whom play pivotal roles, are teasingly mentioned multiple times, and are in great positions to provide substantial critique on the social arrangements in this mathematically oppresive culture, but are relegated to that of support characters. Another one is that of Servitor 1491625, whom ended up accompanying Cheris for a good chunk of her mission, in addition to another servitor, Hemiola, whom we come to learn plays one of the most essential roles, but whose many little side excursions and experiences never really amount to much inner psychological development even if it did lend a sweet note at the end. And all these relationships which are all set up with great potential never really get developed beyond that! My main gripe is that we never really get to know more about our main antagonist Kujen and his childhood, and his reasons he possessed at the moment in which he "flipped" and got rid of his conscience besides the cliché "he didn't want to feel sad stuff anymore". I might be wrong, but I read somewhere that the author was originally going to write Kujen as an old-man-scared-of-death-type character. This kinda makes me wish the author stuck to that or wrote some sort of other background such that it wouldn't make Kujen such a stereotypically cold and calculating bad guy. I don't really like easily pigeonholed bad guys and much prefer them to have hearts too, with the reader feeling torn between some sort of pity or emotional resonance and the character undergoing some sort of tragic warping of their worldview into something different than our traditional moral perspective but still somewhat acceptable (I mean this would go well with the whole pluralism-in-belief-systems angle that the author seems to place in high regards).

Along the character axis, I do think a big pro of these novels was the character Shuos Mikodez! This character had the right level of moral nuance such that we as readers both accept and question their choices. And their personality quirks were downright charming. Definitely my favorite character. Love the onion plant, haha! Overall, the three books paced a good trajectory starting from more fantastical space battles that you would expect out of a military science fiction, transitioning towards a focus on inner character development in the latter books. Although I personally prefer more character development, I can understand the nature of potentially needing to draw in the masses with fantastic space battles first. Also, somewhat tangential, but I think I am a melancholy-addict and would have liked a bit more bittersweet sadness injected at certain parts of the novels. This is just a personal quirk of mine though. 

With regards to world-building, I would have really liked the author to go into more depth about the Hafn biological/anti-tech culture, where humans are used as batteries and spiders crawl through the veins acting like some sort of transport mechanism to a beautiful and elaborately sutured/grown(?) array of birds and plant vines. I would have also liked more exploration of their culture and competing philosophies and value systems. Unfortunately, this is mainly dropped by Lee in the three novels, but I'm crossing my fingers this is elaborated more in the short stories. 

Regardless of the above, world-building is always my favorite part of science fiction and this is why even though I find many flaws with these books, I still rank this series somewhat highly (maybe like a 3.75 or maybe even a 4 if I am in a good mood). My original reason for giving up on the first novel a few years back was that I thought all the mathematical babble/jargon present was just some elaborate way to say "hey we have a neat and novel magic system here but I just don't want to explain how it works nor concern myself with internal logic or consistency", ultimately using math-speak that most people don't understand to lend false credence to any re-mapped concept/phenomenon the author desires. And honestly for the most part it is the latter. I definitely have my reservations and bias against non-rigorous magic systems in science fiction (for rigor/consistency I like to think of something like The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss, or Sanderson's approach to most of his fantasy books), however once you learn to accept and be okay with less, I think you can enjoy these books for what they are. And honestly, the system Lee sets up is pretty novel, downright cool, and somewhat appeals to the inner math geek in me (once I re-work it to something more plausible in my imagination). Requiring military formations to arrange themselves into some sort of geometric configuration to channel a particular technology is a neat idea. And I definitely love the numerical superstition and almost Pythagorean cult-like beliefs surrounding certain mathematics. For instance, a card game called jeng-zai (similar to our real-world version of Tarot of which I have now found more interest in) is used many times in these novels to divine fortune, represent characters with symbolic imagery indicative of internal psychological traits, and much more.

I just wish Lee would have fleshed out their system of mathemagic with a bit more thought, with maybe something like starting with each population's agricultural practices due to the differences in planetary day/seasonal structures and extracting out the corresponding religious beliefs, cultural values, numerical superstitions, and ultimately their differing planetary calendar systems from this (you know, like actual real reasons calendars get made from which they are then shaped by politics). Then we can tie these into corresponding geometric shapes that either tile or not tile into a grand cosmic pattern in (a)periodic fashion, interlocking with each other and adjacent systems ratio-wise similar to some giant spirograph game (like the kids toy), and then finally tying it all into the physics of orbits found in celestial mechanics. This would allow conceptual bridges to be developed into the physics of travel and the corresponding space formations. Then you can sprinkle in some more of the fantasy battle magic stuff when it comes to forcible changes in gravity, shifts of electromagnetic energy / light, etc. Or maybe even do a play on some sort of ability to change into alternative non-euclidean geometric systems so that you can bring in the physical consequences associated with each (maybe not as hardcore as Greg Egan's works, but something somewhat watered-down). I mean, the author is mathematically-trained so I think they have the abilities to do something like this :) Overall, the element I am most critical about in these books is also obviously the part that I love the most (indeed the harshest critics might also be the most ardent fans). The math and its focus on heretical thought definitely appealed to my love of the philosophy and foundations of math (and the problems I have with The System, Academia, and the Bourbakian hegemony!), and more specifically in my personal hobby of designing alternative mathematical systems (such as notational or calendrical systems!) like the proud heretic I am 😅

Anyways, nice job Yoon Ha Lee! I'm glad I gave this series another shot and will be reading any of the other books that take place in this really cool universe :)

Sheila

This trilogy is a triumph of science fiction! I loved every mind-bending minute of it. I have never had such a smooth experience with a book that featured multiple time jumps, POV shifts, and crazy-ass math. So many excellent characters, so many fine touches of detail! Reading The Machineries of Empire has been a blessing.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR – NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST SERIES – WINNER OF THE 2016 LOCUS AWARD – NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO, NEBULA AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS. DEATH AND NEW BEGINNINGS Shuos Jedao is awake. … and nothing is as he remembers. In his mind he’s a teenager, a cadet—a nobody. But he finds himself in the body of an old man, a general controlling the elite forces of the hexarchate, and the most feared—and reviled—man in the galaxy. Jedao carries orders from Hexarch Nirai Kujen to re-conquer the fractured pieces of the hexarchate on his behalf. But he has no memory of ever being a soldier, let alone a general, and the Kel soldiers under his command hate him for a massacre he can’t remember committing. Kujen’s friendliness can’t hide the fact that he’s a tyrant. And what’s worse, Jedao and Kujen are being hunted by an enemy who knows more about Jedao and his crimes than he does himself...

Revenant Gun N/A

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