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

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He was a renown general a few centuries ago, until he apparently went mad and massacred his own troops. Ninefox Gambit is covered in a dark blue Metallium cloth, Raven Stratagem a green Metallium cloth and Revenant Gun a light purple Metallium cloth. How did Lee’s experiences as a trans man influence the transformations undergone by Cheris as a result of her uneasy partnership with Jedao? Many readers will struggle to absorb the contours of this universe by osmosis, which is the only option Lee presents.

And thank you to the interwebs for telling me over and over to stick with the book despite those first chapters. It was very jarring and distracting because the way she says it is very robotic and so out of place it's all you can focus on. The Fortress of Scattered Needles is actually a planet-sized space station, and it has the population of a planet as well.In those moments, both Cheris and the reader get the feeling that maybe Jedao is not the madman history has made him out to be – that maybe history was deliberately rewritten around him to paint him as the villain. 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.

To accomplish her mission, Cheris chooses to access the mind of the renowned general and tactician Shuos Jedeo.There are moments, small but significant ones, where Cheris notices something about Jedao: a sense of human feeling shining through – more than that, a sense of vulnerability. To be sure, there will be plenty of elements that make good scientific sense, but there will also be plenty of other elements (like “exotic effects” and “calendrical rot”) that do not make any immediate sense at all. It wasn't the weapon's governing equations, or even the instructor's left eye, damaged during the attack, from which ghostlight glimmered.

What follows is a battle of wits not just against the enemy, but against her chosen ally, Jedao, and even against the high command of the Hexarchate she serves.Abigail Nussbaum, Worlds in the making, New Scientist, Volume 235, Issue 3138, 2017, Page 43, https://doi. When Cheris breaks the rules in a forbidden-yet-clever way (more on this later), she is punished by her superiors with a dangerous assignment: her body is chosen to play host to the ghost (or spirit, or something) of long-dead General Shuos Jedao.

The reviews and comments posted on this site reflect the opinions of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Cannonball Read. He’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, the hexarchate’s greatest general and their most dangerous weapon, to others and to themselves. He'll describe people being torn apart, their limbs falling off from a calendrical weapon, with the prettiest words you'll ever hear. To me, the idea of a mathematician writing novels makes total sense, and a consensus reality system based on enforced calendrical beliefs only intrigues rather than stymies me. Another exclusive design feature of the lettered edition is a debossed Hexarchate symbol on the front board, a different one on each title: Shuos (the ninefox) for Ninefox Gambit; Kel (the ashhawk) for Raven Stratagem; and Nirai (the voidmoth) for Revenant Gun.

Jedao’s mind has been preserved for use as a weapon by Kel command, which Cheris now carries within her own. It reunites two characters that should have spent more time together in the later books, and really sends the message to the Hexarchate that their troubles are far from over—and they, like the rest of us, should never have underestimated certain groups that kept to the background. But they probably weren’t the questions you’d think I would have, if you know this novel’s reputation.