Raven Stratagem (Machineries of Empire Series #2)

by Yoon Ha Lee

Overview

When the hexarchate's gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment - and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev's subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that matter, will the hexarchate's masters wipe out the entire fleet to destroy the rogue general?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781085370
Publisher:	Solaris
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Series:	Machineries of Empire Series , #2
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	293,480
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Yoon Ha Lee's debut novel, Ninefox Gambit, won the Locus Award for best first novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke awards. Its sequels, Raven Stratagem and Revenant Gun, were also Hugo finalists. His middle grade novel Dragon Pearl was a New York Times bestseller, and won the Mythopoeic Award and the Locus Award for YA. His most recent book is Tiger Honor, a companion novel to Dragon Pearl. Lee lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/24/2017
This stunning sequel to the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Ninefox Gambit contains a satisfying mixture of interstellar battles, politics, intrigue, and arcane technology. The Hafn have invaded Hexarchate territory, and the Hexarchate military Kel Command have resorted to deploying a human weapon to take control of the response force. He is the resurrected General Shuos Jedao, and he has possessed the body of Kel infantry captain Ajewen Cheris. After subduing and releasing Lieutenant Colonel Brezan, who tries to resist him, Jedao goes rogue, still fighting the Hafn but also pursuing his own agenda. Brezan is promoted to the rank of high general and sent back to retake control of the fleet with the assassin Tseya, a member of the diplomatic Andan faction. In the background, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez maneuvers his faction’s intelligence-gathering forces; meanwhile, the leader of another faction has disappeared, and his replacement offers immortality to her peers. With multiple characters skilled in deception, Lee is able to keep readers guessing at Jedao’s goals until the end. He never explains the Hexarchate’s “calendrical technology,” but readers who don’t mind being dropped in the deep end will savor this brilliantly imagined tale. Agent: Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary. (June)

Publishers Weekly

★ 06/15/2017
Gen. Shuos Jedao, a 400-plus-year-old master strategist and mass murderer, was anchored to Capt. Kel Charis in the Hugo- and Nebula Award-nominated Ninefox Gambit. As this sequel opens, Jedao has survived an assassination attempt and taken over another military Swarm. While he is willing to fight off the Hanf who have invaded local space, his goal seems to be the destruction of the hexarchate, the rigid social and political structure that he feels has grown corrupt. Meanwhile, the hexarchate leaders are scrambling to control the man they use as their ultimate weapon. Lee has leveraged the adage that any seemingly advanced science can look like magic to create truly bizarre technologies, starting with a society based so rigidly on a special calendar that any who stray from its rules are executed as heretics. While the parasitic arrangement between Charis and Jedao created interesting character developments in book one, it shifts here to an even more unreliable narrator dynamic. VERDICT While there is plenty of gripping space opera action, the real pleasure of this series is the inventive worldbuilding.—MM

Library Journal