Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire Series #1)

by Yoon Ha Lee

Overview

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

When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao – because she might be his next victim.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849979924
Publisher:	Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	06/14/2016
Series:	Machineries of Empire Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	714 KB

About the Author

Yoon Ha Lee is a writer and mathematician from Houston, Texas, whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He has published over forty short stories, and his critically acclaimed collection Conservation of Shadows was released in 2013. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators.

Yoon Ha Lee is a Korean-American sf/f writer who received a B.A. in math from Cornell University and an M.A. in math education from Stanford University, and is pursuing an MFA in media composition and orchestration at ThinkSpace Education. His young adult mecha novel MOONSTORM is currently a finalist for the Ignyte Award (YA) and was a finalist for the Nebula Award (YA). Yoon’s novel NINEFOX GAMBIT won the Locus Award for best first novel, and was a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, and Clarke awards. His TTRPG Ninefox Gambit RPG, co-authored with Marie Brennan, was a Nebula finalist in game writing. He has written comic scripts for Marvel (DOOM’S DIVISION #1-5 and “Epée Is Truth” in THE X-MEN: THE WEDDING SPECIAL #1).

Yoon’s hobbies include game design, art, and destroying the reader. He lives in Louisiana with his family, a 5-string viola, and a lazy catten, and has not yet been eaten by alto clefs.

Editorial Reviews

The story is dense, the pace intense, and the delicate East Asian flavoring of the math-rich setting might make it seem utterly alien to many readers—yet metaphors for our own world abound…Readers willing to invest in a steep learning curve will be rewarded with a tight-woven, complicated but not convoluted, breathtakingly original space opera. And since this is only the first book of the Machineries of Empire trilogy, it's the start of what looks to be a wild ride.

The New York Times Book Review - N. K. Jemisin

Daring, original and compulsive. As if Cordwainer Smith had written a Warhammer novel.” —Gareth L. Powell

“A high-octane ride through an endlessly inventive world, where calendars are weapons of war and dead soldiers can assist the living. Bold, fearlessly innovative and just a bit brutal, this is a book that deserves to be on every awards list.” —Aliette de Bodard

“For sixteen years Yoon Ha Lee has been the shadow general of science fiction, the calculating tactician behind victory after victory. Now he launches his great manoeuvre. Origami elegant, fox-sly, defiantly and ferociously new, this book will burn your brain. Axiomatically brilliant. Heretically good.” —Seth Dickinson

“A striking space opera by a bright new talent.” —Elizabeth Bear

“Starship Troopers meets Apocalypse Now – and they’ve put Kurtz in charge... Mind-blistering military space opera, but with a density of ideas and strangeness that recalls the works of Hannu Rajaniemi, even Cordwainer Smith. An unmissable debut.” —Stephen Baxter

“I love Yoon’s work! Ninefox Gambit is solidly and satisfyingly full of battles and political intrigue, in a beautifully built far-future that manages to be human and alien at the same time. It should be a treat for readers already familiar with Yoon’s excellent short fiction, and an extra treat for readers finding Yoon’s work for the first time.” —Ann Leckie

“Beautiful, brutal and full of the kind of off-hand inventiveness that the best SF trades in, Ninefox Gambit is an effortlessly accomplished SF novel. Yoon Ha Lee has arrived in spectacular fashion.” —Alastair Reynolds?

“Breathtakingly original” —The New York Times

“Beautiful, vast and rooted in the real” —NPR

“Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire is the kind of trilogy you love to discover — one filled with space battles, political intrigue, and technology so advanced it feels magical.” —SYFY

“With intergalactic battles and political schemes, Ninefox Gambit is set in an inventive world governed by calendrical systems.” —The Portalist

From the Publisher

"Starship Troopers meets Apocalypse Now – and they've put Kurtz in charge... Mind-blistering military space opera, but with a density of ideas and strangeness that recalls the works of Hannu Rajaniemi, even Cordwainer Smith. An unmissable debut." — Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

"Daring, original and compulsive. As if Cordwainer Smith had written a Warhammer novel." — Gareth L. Powell

Gareth L Powell

"I love Yoon's work! Ninefox Gambit is solidly and satisfyingly full of battles and political intrigue, in a beautifully built far-future that manages to be human and alien at the same time. It should be a treat for readers already familiar with Yoon's excellent short fiction, and an extra treat for readers finding Yoon's work for the first time." — Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie

"A high-octane ride through an endlessly inventive world, where calendars are weapons of war and dead soldiers can assist the living. Bold, fearlessly innovative and just a bit brutal, this is a book that deserves to be on every awards list." — Aliette de Bodard

Aliette de Bodard

"Beautiful, brutal and full of the kind of off-hand inventiveness that the best SF trades in, Ninefox Gambit is an effortlessly accomplished SF novel. Yoon Ha Lee has arrived in spectacular fashion." — Alastair Reynolds?

Alastair Reynolds

"A striking space opera by a bright new talent." — Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear

"For sixteen years Yoon Ha Lee has been the shadow general of science fiction, the calculating tactician behind victory after victory. Now he launches his great manoeuvre. Origami elegant, fox-sly, defiantly and ferociously new, this book will burn your brain. Axiomatically brilliant. Heretically good." — Seth Dickinson

Seth Dickinson

Daring,original and compulsive. As if Cordwainer Smith had written a Warhammer novel.

Gareth L. Powell

A tight-woven, complicated but not convoluted, breathtakingly original space opera.

New York Times

"A dizzying composite of military space opera andsheer poetry. Every word, name and concept in Lee's unique world is imbued witha sense of wonder."

Hannu Rajaniemi