Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire, #1) in The Sword and Laser

Jul 31, 2017 Silvana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mine-mine-mine, poc-diaspora-authors, asian-sff-authors, lgbtqia, reading-with-friends, space-the-final-frontier, fyeahfantasy, huh-what, dead-trees, sci-fi

Oh my...I'm too stunned to establish a coherent review. This is a marvelous, intelligent, innovative, and entertaining debut novel, with fantastic characters, excellent dialogues, and rich yet vivid worldbuilding! One of the best show-don't-tell SFF works out there. I would be devastated if this does not win the Hugo! ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Michelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, author-asian, science-fiction, kindle, audio

Ninefox Gambit is a fast paced first installment of a series fit for the hardcore sci-fi fans. I’ll just preface this review with a few little warnings the most important SPOILERS (maybe…I don’t even know what is and isn’t a spoiler for the freaking book)! Secondly, DO NOT GET THE AUDIO (I will explain why below, but it’s good advice).

I was really looking forward to Ninefox Gambit. I’d heard about it through a podcast and a lot of the buzz over it was vague but really positive, I was sure this w Ninefox Gambit is a fast paced first installment of a series fit for the hardcore sci-fi fans. I’ll just preface this review with a few little warnings the most important SPOILERS (maybe…I don’t even know what is and isn’t a spoiler for the freaking book)! Secondly, DO NOT GET THE AUDIO (I will explain why below, but it’s good advice).

I was really looking forward to Ninefox Gambit. I’d heard about it through a podcast and a lot of the buzz over it was vague but really positive, I was sure this would be a perfect fit for me and I actually purchased it. It was not a perfect fit. It was like buying a shirt that looks great on the mannequin but has all these confusing straps and buttons, and by the time you figure out how to get it on you’ve been struggling for far too long and you just want to take the shirt back to store. In short, this book is confusing as hell. Gambit is a vague and yet overly detailed story. I was confused before we even got into the second chapter. You just get plopped into the middle of a conflict and it starts hurling weird words at you like you’re supposed to know what it means. I’m all for books that don’t hand hold the entire way through something, and I’m all for context clues and subtle building….but this doesn’t have either. It doesn’t guide you through the political system or why calendars are so freaking vital to the stability of the entire civilization. It’s a well written but highly confusing mess.

I do know what the calendars mean NOW, several hours after finishing the book, but only because I read someone else’s low rated review and it was explained there. I had an “OH!” moment and suddenly so much of the plot made more sense. It’s similar to a hive mind (but not) and it requires all thoughts to work in tandem toward the same system of reality and when someone becomes a heretic they’ve basically broken away from that thinking and then Calendrical Rot happens setting off a chain reaction of others thinking outside of the guidelines. But it’s not explained like that…we’re just supposed to sort of infer that all of these made up words work in a certain way.

Now the stuff I did get, I actually enjoyed. I liked Jadao and his role with Cheris, and I love the idea of using a kind of immortal guy as a tactician even though he’s a known traitor. BUT I didn’t get how any of that worked. I loved some of the imagery as well like Jadao’s shadow. The last chapter was pretty good because we actually get information.

I can’t even commit the story, Proper nouns to memory. I was trying but it becomes way too much. Any book that requires me to keep notes in order to follow isn’t one I want to read. A final complaint…this seems to be sci-fi because of the whole space, advanced technology, and guns aspects but the story itself is like a fantasy novel. Half of the stuff barely makes sense. Anytime someone would talk about the math of their formations and the powers they can use because of it, I just assume it was magic. It works better as magic because we get no actual explanation of the way this odd technology works.

This is a dense book. It has a lot of details you’re going to need time to figure out. Because of this, you should get a print copy. You’re probably going to need to read things over in order to get them, and trying to constantly skip back in an audio is just too much. The narrator was pretty decent. I had no complaints in terms of the reading, but it’s just not an audio friendly text.

So…in short, I didn’t like it. I don’t hate it, but it’s not a book I want to revisit and I certainly don’t want to continue the series. It’s too much and not enough all at once. It’s one that I definitely suggest reading a sample of it first, so you’re not sitting through almost 11 hours of text utterly hating yourself. ...more

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Jan 28, 2019 Jen rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-laser

If you hate detailed descriptions, this is the book for you!

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Jul 19, 2021 Winter rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

This was a different reading experience for me.
Now there's a loaded sentence.
In general I would prefer that anything new that I read feels "new". But like anyone else, I have a comfort zone. Especially if I'm blatantly reading scifi for escapism. For me, this book landed on the line between new and interesting and just a bit too far outside my range of enjoyment.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy military based science fiction, unreliable narrator aspects, and creative weaponry. This was a different reading experience for me.
Now there's a loaded sentence.
In general I would prefer that anything new that I read feels "new". But like anyone else, I have a comfort zone. Especially if I'm blatantly reading scifi for escapism. For me, this book landed on the line between new and interesting and just a bit too far outside my range of enjoyment.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy military based science fiction, unreliable narrator aspects, and creative weaponry. I would say skip this book if you need descriptive (not just imaginative) action sequences, or dislike military-centric and often very violent stories.

I had a hard time getting into the first quarter or maybe even half of this book. I almost set it aside for something else a handful of times. But I devoured the last half of the book, and over all I'm glad I finished. I probably won't continue the series though.

Vague Spoilers Below

What I liked:

• I loved the dialogue and interactions between Cheris and Jedao. The whole "conversations with a voice in my head" thing might not be new. But the way it was put together was compelling. And those parts of the book were very well written. Jedao is "anchored" inside Cheris, but as a separate entity. They can't read each others minds, even though they are sort of sharing a mindpsace, but still can't completely trust each other, and this made things interesting. This interaction is really what drove my enjoyment of this story. I looked forward to the Cheris/Jadao parts of the book, and found myself skimming the other parts of the book.

• I liked the way that the author worked the servitors (sentient robot helper things) into the story. It was artfully done. I initially thought the servitor passages would be a bit of light hearted side story. But it ends up having both layers and importance. I would have taken more of that story, but maybe it was the scarcity of it that made it something I looked forward to.

What I didn't like:
• I couldn't get into the descriptions of the conflicts. Both large scale strategy and close up combat. They were just a bit too abstract for me. I suspect that for some this is a strength of the book. It was a very different way of describing both the battles in space and on the "ground". And though it was fun to read this different approach I found myself skimming over them and not really enjoying those parts.

• The "exotic weapons".
This is another one that is probably a strong point for some people. The Calendrical sword, Amputation gun, Threshold winnower, Fungal canister, Carrion bomb, Directional storm generator. The names for these weapons are creative and poetic. But reading the passages describing their use in combat just kinda threw me out of the story.

...more

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Feb 07, 2017 Stephanie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi, audio, books-i-own, maleauthor, series, u-s-a, fromtbr, 2017reads, audible

WHY?: This book was one of the hottest Science Fiction books of 2016 and got a lot of rave reviews.

I am nothing if not a follower. It also really sounded like an interesting story.
I think I want to start by talking a little about the reading experience. I was confused. A Lot. Pretty much 50% of the time for the first 3/4 of the book. Lee has imagined a civilization that is complex and detailed and he doesn't spend a lot of time explaining it. He just jumps right in and asks the reader to keep u WHY?: This book was one of the hottest Science Fiction books of 2016 and got a lot of rave reviews.

I am nothing if not a follower. It also really sounded like an interesting story.
I think I want to start by talking a little about the reading experience. I was confused. A Lot. Pretty much 50% of the time for the first 3/4 of the book. Lee has imagined a civilization that is complex and detailed and he doesn't spend a lot of time explaining it. He just jumps right in and asks the reader to keep up and stop dragging him down. Normally this would have made me frustrated to the point that I would have disengaged with the book but I didn't in this case. I won't say I was flipping pages at a breakneck speed (or in audio land finding every spare minute to listen) but I was curious and interested and yes, engaged with the book.

I wondered what would have happened if I was reading rather than listening - would it have been easier to follow? would I have been more prone to drop it? I'm not sure. It was definitely a more intricately plotted and detailed book than I usually like to listen to and as a result, I could only listen when I was doing something relatively brainless. For example, I sometimes will get in some reading while doing data entry at work but this book required too much attention for that. Pretty much, driving or walking the dogs were the only activities I could do simultaneously! The narrator was great, though.

So, what kept me engaged, despite being utterly lost?
1) When boiled down, the plot is actually pretty basic. If you look at the synopsis above, that is really all that is going on, with a pretty significant side helping of political intrigue, and as long as you can follow that and are interested in the outcome of the siege and intrigued by the mysteries surrounding Jedao (the undead General) than it should keep you reading. It definitely kept me hooked.
2) Kel Cheris is a good solid main character and entry point into the crazy complicated world Lee has developed. I liked her, I was rooting for her, and her relationship and interactions with Jedao are great.
3) Jedao and his story are fascinating. He's an unreliable and mysterious presence in the story and I definitely felt driven to find out exactly what was up with him.
4) Cheris and Jedao: The two of them together have such a unique, crazy and interesting relationship.

I did also slowly learn to appreciate the world Lee has created. The society is ruled by a governing body known as the Hexarchate (in Jedao's time it was called the Heptarchate) which has structured the daily lives of its citizens around an intricate calendar. Following the calendar in just such a manner is somehow tied into and is crucial to their technology and any deviations create problems in the very fabric of the civilization. The society is also structured by sorting its citizens into different guilds or factions based on their proclivities and talents. In my simple mind I saw this as a more complicated version of the situation in the Divergent series, lol. For example, Cheris is a Kel which are the soldiers and officers in the military. Once you've "enrolled" in your caste or group, you are put into intensive training and even mentally or physically altered to increase effectiveness - for example a procedure is done to the Kel so that they will follow orders no matter what. There are people of course that could go more than one direction and there is an element of choice about which faction you end up in. For example, Cheris is also very, very good at math, so good that she could have been in numbers nerds faction (I can't remember the fancy name Lee gives them) but instead chose the Kel. Jedao was first a member of the Shuos - the devious deep-thinkers that are the tacticians, spies etc... but he switches and became a Kel General and proceeds to never lose a battle.

That's just a small peek into the incredibly creative and complex world that Lee has created. In fact that's the ...um... easy parts. The society and technology is fascinating and interesting to puzzle out but I found that if I didn't quite grasp the details of what was going on, I was still okay and had no trouble following the overall narrative. I've seen it described as Military Science Fiction and Space Opera and it is in fact, a good blend of the two.

It also packs a number of surprises. Much of the confusion throughout most of the book is not just because it is dense and complex it is because Cheris does not have all the pieces to the puzzle and therefore the reader doesn't either. Jedao's and even the Hexarchate itself's motivations are confusing and suspect which sets up a big reveal in the last 1/4 of the book. It doesn't necessarily all become totally clear but the important stuff does and it is a satisfying pay-off for much of the confusion earlier in the book. It's a shocking, strange and kind of kick-ass conclusion.

Ninefox Gambit is without a doubt a really impressive work of science fiction. Lee's world is deep and fascinating and the plot is intricate and ultimately satisfying. However, I can't give it full marks because of the frustration of confusion throughout much of the book. The reading experience was not all it could be for me. However, different readers mileage will vary - many may relish reading slowly and carefully and imprinting all the details. I prefer to get pulled in and carried along on the tide of a story. I got some of that but it was a bit of a choppy ride.

FINAL VERDICT: A complex and intricately plotted military science fiction/space opera extravaganza. Takes some concentration and can be confusing but is ultimately satisfying thanks to interesting main characters and great ending. ...more

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