Ok, this one was tough for me to get into. Right from the start it hits the reader (or, at least, me) with difficult to understand concepts.

Kel Cheris is the officer in charge of a squad in the middle of an infantry battle. She starts out talking about things like specialized military formations that require high level mathematics and produce seemingly magical effects (attacks, defenses, etc.). (Luckily for her squad, Cheris is really really good at math.) The infantry (the Kel) are fighting heretics that are promoting calendrical rot. After a while I figured out the book's world was based in a far-flung space empire run by a theocracy that makes the Inquisition look majorly benevolent and life-affirming. These people spend their soldiers lives like they're sickeningly rich shopaholics at a massive fire sale. Their magic/science, with its calendrical rot thing, appears to be based on the Asian concept of auspicious/inauspicious days... but don't quote me on that. Once I managed to dig my way past the odd (high?) concepts being slung at me at mach speeds, there's a pretty interesting story to be found.

'Ninefox Gambit' by Yoon Ha Lee is the first book in a military SF book where math is a weapon and the undead can be brilliant tacticians.

Kel Cheris is a young commander caught using unconventional methods of battle against a heretical enemy. Her next assignment is going to be to take the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a seemingly impossible target. She is given unusual help in Shuos Jedao, an undead and highly dangerous ally. Jedao is unbeatable, but also more than a little crazy. Cheris rides the knife edge of trusting Jedao, while those around her warn her to be ready for him to turn on her.

I confess to being a bit lost on this one. I liked the concepts and the characters, but much of it seemed to whoosh right over my head. I do want to read more in the series, and I hope that going forward things become a bit clearer. It's a really interesting approach to space battles and military in space.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Solaris, Rebellion, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

This is an amazing, intricate, difficult book. I had to work to get through the beginning, but once I did I couldn't stop. It took all of my focus but also held all my attention. Brilliant and unique in such a way that I cannot even give specifics because to do so would be a pale reflection of the original. I am in awe of the author's ability to tell this tale. Not an easy read, but well worth it.

Ninefox Gambit establishes Yoon Ha Lee as a risk taker in the mold of many of science fiction’s most uncompromising maverick talents, like Samuel Delany. Though it doesn’t always execute all of its narrative strategies flawlessly, it’s a novel that offers adventurous readers a little storytelling heresy to shake up some of the stuffy old rules.

Check link for full length review.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee has been nominated for a handful of awards for best novels. I knew before the first page that it should be a decent read. I knew after the first page that it was going to be entertaining; humour underlying serious themes that include mass-murder and manipulation to the extreme.

I have to admit, it took me a few chapters before I decided that I actually liked the book. One trait that makes science-fiction enjoyable is that you never know what sort of world you will end up inhabiting. Unfortunately, a few chapters in, and I still had no idea. I couldn’t get my head around how this system was working and the characters couldn’t develop when I couldn’t put them in any sort of setting.

Although I still can’t explain the world to someone else, I got the hang of it after a few chapters. Then the enjoyment could begin.

I liked Cheris from the beginning. She is talented but modest – her position as a Kel means that her life is mapped out for her and all she has to do is follow orders. But as the book progresses, that isn’t enough for Cheris and she starts thinking for herself. Cheris’ compassion and self-doubt makes her a likeable character despite the actions she has to take later on.

Jedao is supposedly mad. But he was also the best character due to his dry wit throughout. His general lack of trustworthiness – he never tries to prove himself – made me instinctively like him, despite his track-record as a murderer.

The narration follows Cheris, but flashes to other characters to give you the bigger picture of events. For most novels, this would feel like cheating, but Lee weaves it so effortlessly that you accept a brief snapshot from someone else before returning to the main drama.

The writing is humorous. This is mainly through the dialogue, specifically between Cheris and Jedao as no one else can hear him, allowing for his comments to say what Cheris herself cannot. But there are humorous tones hidden throughout. One squad are known as nervous and steady engineers, highlighting their characteristics without in-depth description.

Although it is difficult to understand the complexities of the system and who are the true heretics, I understood enough to get my head around the different types of people (Cheris is a Kel, meaning orders override any self-preservation instinct) and how they deployed their battle tactics (formations for Kel are far more than just standing in the correct place).

The plot is twisted together with the past and the present blending as both the reader and Cheris start to understand more about Jedao. Questions rise throughout about who can be trusted and whether Jedao is actually mad, or just someone with a bigger goal.

Despite the complexities, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I remained engaged throughout, the humour stopping the destruction from being overwhelming. The pace was steady and the characters likeable. Very entertaining.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee is space opera fantasy. From the plot description, I was expecting it to be a difficult read, but in fact the complex, fascinating, and unusual worldbuilding is really clearly presented, so I followed it without any trouble. I don’t read a lot of books of Ideas any more, so this, too, is refreshing.

I am so late to this one. I'm sorry, and especially sorry because when I finally picked it up, I read it in an evening and immediately formulated a plan to go and pick up the sequel at my earliest convenience or possibly earlier. I didn't start out that well with it, because the talk of maths blindsided me; once I started treating it like magic, however, and therefore subject to rules I may not understand, I got really fascinated by the whole system. It does keep you on your toes, and often avoids spoonfeeding you the things you need to know, so if you're looking for something to turn your brain off and settle into, this isn't it.

However, I got totally caught up in the characters, too. Not so much because they're likeable -- I'm not sure they are -- but because I wanted to know what made them tick, what was going to happen, and how they were going to achieve their goals -- or indeed, what their actual goals were.

I don't know how to say more about this without merely describing it or giving spoilers, but suffice it to say I enjoyed it a lot. There's something of the feel of Ancillary Justice (and the sequels) about it, although in many respects it's totally different.

Review link is live on my blog from 26th September 2017.

Oh it has been a long time since I've enjoyed a space opera quite like this. I loved Too Like the Lightning earlier this year, but I didn't give it a five star rating, because the whole thing didn't really pick up until about 40% of the way through. In that review I compared Palmer's work to The Quantum Thief , another book (and series) I loved, with an air of playfulness and intrigue that kept me turning the pages and obsessively refreshing the library reservation page, in the hopes that the sequels would be delivered faster. With Ninefox Gambit, I feel I'm on board for another space opera adventure, one that sucks you in from page one and doesn't ever let up. I will note at this point that I have read neither Ancillary Justice nor Leviathan Wakes, though they are both on the reading pile for this year (along with about 35 other books, but let it never be said that I am not ambitious when it comes to my reading...).

Ninefox Gambit opens with a war against heretics, with a formation led by one Kel Cheris, a brilliant mathematician who seems slightly wasted on the "blunt instrument" that many consider the Kel to be. As it transpires, she is a member of a faction that makes up the hexarchate, a group of people who lead the empire through a strict calendrical doctrine (now, for some people, this stops being about hard sci-fi and starts turning into fantasy, so make of that what you will; for my part, I considered this to be a sci-fi book through and through and I didn't particularly care that the calendrical doctrine as such wasn't really explained at all and could easily be boiled down to magic). Yoon Ha Lee has very handily provided a cheatsheet of all the factions and everything they stand for (along with their allegiances), but I would absolutely recommend leaving this until the very end, because of all the spoilers involved. I agree with him that it would have been ace to have it included with the book, but it's still a useful resource for future reference (especially once I pick up the sequel, Raven Stratagem).

Kel Cheris executes an 'exotic' formation, one that gets her noticed and sends the rest of her troops off for reeducation. However, her approach also makes her a prime candidate to retake the Fortress of Shattered Needles from the heretics and when she's given a choice of weapon, she chooses the mad general Shuos Jedao, renowned for killing two armies in a grand battle, one of them his own. Jedao is now bound to Cheris, but she finds she cannot wholly trust him -- how much of what he's telling her is real and how much is part of his unhinged mind? What caused Jedao to go insane and why is he still helping the Kel who imprisoned him, so many centuries ago? As for Cheris, will her training as Kel, her formation instinct (inability to refuse obeying an order), can she truly resist Jedao and his mind games? At every step, she struggles to believe him and use his expertise without allowing herself to trust him too much. Against this backdrop, greater political machinations are taking place and there is more to the Fortress of Shattered Needles than just heretical calendars.

I absolutely love the way Yoon Ha Lee structures his story, the way the perspectives shift and how little I found myself trusting Jedao. It's apparent that his work on short stories is well known among the sf/f community but he's somehow managed to completely elude my notice. Ninefox Gambit is his debut novel and I only learned of it through the controversy when it lost out on a Nebula award to All the Birds in the Sky, which I actually want to read for this year's r/fantasy bingo challenge. I'll be honest: at this point in time, it has a lot to live up to, because I was absolutely blown away by Yoon Ha Lee's debut. At about 43% through the book, I was completely on board the hype train and I genuinely did not want it to stop. The hour lunch break spent reading this did not feel like enough.

I like a sci-fi book that throws me straight into the story and lets me discover the plot alongside the other characters. I like the fact that things can be confusing (we are, after all, in the middle of war), but most of all I like the characters and their stories. From the servitors to minor Kel commanders who only appear in one scene, Lee is exceptionally good at sketching these characters and actually giving them a personality, little quirks to humanise them. He doesn't shy away from the horrors of war and he reminds you, the reader, and Cheris that they are not merely numbers, no matter what Jedao would have you believe. In this, as in many other ways, this really sets up not only the rest of the trilogy but also the real possibility of re-reading. Knowing the end, I definitely want to make my way through this again, just to see whether I can spot the twists and actually get a greater understanding of the text that way.

Ninefox Gambit is definitely worth reading and I genuinely cannot wait for the sequel (later this month!).

I enjoyed the book but thought it was nothing special.