Series: Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee ("Ninefox Gambit")

[Lowell]

don't get me wrong, I'm going to be buying/supporting this either way. I mean... duh?

[Anna]

From https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-hex...

"Hello, folks! Here is a hexarchate “soundtrack” album, Banner the Deuce of Gears! It includes themes for Jedao One, Jedao Two, and Cheris (among others), plus a bonus joke track, “Burn It Down with Math (feat. Liozh Dia)”! Aside from the joke song, this is neoclassical/soundtrack orchestral music.

The album is $7 (USD) on Bandcamp, but if you want it for free, please email me at deuceofgearsart [at] gmail.com and I will hook you up with the mp3’s and booklet PDF, no questions asked. Please spread the word!"

https://deuceofgears.bandcamp.com/alb...

[Anna]

Two new things from YHL:

No more Patreon, so I'll copy the things below instead of linking to them:


A farewell message

Hello, lovely patrons!

I'm writing with the sad news that I am leaving Patreon. I've seen allegations about Patreon (WARNING: discussion of child sexual abuse/exploitation) that mean I am no longer comfortable using this platform. As of this writing, I don't know if those allegations have been substantiated. However, I don't have time to dig into this more deeply (I'm under deadline for Lancers #1 edits) and I'm about to leave the country for a work trip. I've already unsubscribed from various Patreons and am looking for other ways to support those creators. After this message goes out, I will start the process for deleting this account.

I want to thank you for the journey we've had together, whether you commented or lurked, whether you were here for crackfic or writing progress updates or just to connect. I've really appreciated y'all's support.

If you would like to continue following me, I've set up a newsletter that you can subscribe to here*. This is NOT a Patreon replacement in terms of functionality. It's a FREE newsletter. I will be sending out writing updates, tips on writing, the occasional bit of art or catten pic, flash fairy tales, hexarchate snippets, and so on - similar to the content you've been used to getting on Patreon - but it will be FREE.

Otherwise, if you'd like to email me directly, you can reach me at deuceofgearsart [at] gmail.com.

Thank you all for everything, and I hope your futures are bright.

Yours in calendrical heresy,
Yoon Ha Lee

* https://buttondown.email/deuceofgears


"deleted" scene from Ninefox Gambit

Well, not exactly - someone on Tumblr was asking about the bit I cut from Ninefox Gambit because Jedao was giving an Authorial Lecture on historical/linguistics. My sister correctly complained that this was me, and was totally out of character for Jedao.

This corresponds roughly to Ch 20, pp. 261-3 - you’ll note a number of differences from the published version. I’ve marked the Out Of Character Linguistics Lecture. :)

This is from the third draft (the submission/published draft was more or less the seventh draft). In the published version of Ninefox, I'm not even sure Tieneved gets mentioned by name. IIRC it's briefly namechecked (by Khiruev?) in Raven Stratagem.

Khiruev, unlike Jedao, does muse a bit on fiddly linguistic bits; but unlike Jedao, Khiruev is something of an intellectual. She debates musicology, for crying out loud. (That bit was inspired by having to read Grout for music class in high school.) She would go to the opera. Hell, she's probably thought about writing an opera. She would care about culture and language and literature. Jedao, well, Jedao is normally good at learning languages (when the language course hasn't been sabotaged as in "Extracurricular Activities"), but he isn't a linguist, and he's vaguely indifferent to high culture.

===

(view spoiler)[ “You’ve won,” Jedao said when she woke. She still had 1.2 hours before the next high table.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Cheris said. “The Fortress isn’t stable. My own commanders aren’t talking to me. And we’re at war with the Hafn, who were supposed to be friendly.”

“We’re at the limit of the problems I can help you with,” Jedao said dryly.

She had to laugh. Then she looked down at her gloves. It had been easy to despise him before. Now she didn’t know what to think. She had sacrificed Kel. Intellectually she knew that most commanders had to do this sooner or later, that the Kel were made to be sacrificed. But it didn’t make her feel better about it.

“Something could still go wrong,” Cheris said.

“Oh, you have significant problems,” Jedao said. “But I would be surprised if anything went catastrophically wrong with the Fortress, and that’s your mission.”

“I wonder if they’ll still outprocess me.”

“They’d be fools to. Admittedly you can’t go back to being what you were, either. But they’ll find a use for you if that’s what you want.”

“I remember when I knew what I wanted." It had been a long time ago.

"Yes, that’s always hard,” he said.

“What do you want?” Cheris asked. She thought of him speaking of the darkness and the quiet, the absence of voices.

He had to live forever with himself for company. She was beginning to see why he might want to die.

“I only wanted to serve. It’s a Kel sort of thing to want, so I shouldn’t even admit it.”

He didn’t say anything about suicide.

“I wish I understood you,” Cheris said.

They weren’t going to have much more time together. She understood that, at least.

“It wasn’t your duty to understand, Cheris.”

She thought he might have been about to say “fledge” instead, but no doubt it was her imagination.

When the time came, Cheris went to high table. Commander Hazan was overseeing the command center, but she saw Rahal Gara, and Shuos Ko, and other faces that had grown familiar. She tried not to flinch from the suicide hawk on the wall. It was the same as the one in her quarters, after all.

Cheris had brought the simple cup that had been provided her–how long ago? She took her sip, barely tasting the wine, and passed it around. The ritual brought her comfort. Here she was Kel surrounded by Kel.

She would have given much to have Kel Nerevor by her side, bright as fire, but no one had any word of her.

There were servitors along the wall, more than usual for the occasion. Cheris didn’t think the wine would interest them, although she could be wrong. She rose and walked along the line to acknowledge them, wishing she could offer something better. They were very quiet, and their eyes gleamed.

The servitors would have known which of her formations were suicide formations ahead of time. Of the humans, only those in the affected companies had been informed.

The food was cautiously celebratory, richer than usual. Cheris didn’t care for the sauces, but she partook of them anyway.

“It’s good to see you show an appetite,” Jedao said. “I’d hate to see you keel over from hunger.”

Cheris dismissed this as irrelevant and kept a thoughtful eye on Ko. He knew she was watching him, but he bore this as stoically as he bore everything. The analyst who was a double for Heptarch Khiaz sat next to him, laughing at some joke Cheris couldn’t hear.

“The problem with the Shuos,” Jedao said, noticing her interest, “is that we select for competence and not much else. I often think of the good Khiaz could have done for the heptarchate if she had been interested in others’ welfare. She could have been a brilliant leader. And instead.”

“You hated her,” Cheris said around a mouthful of spinach with sesame seeds. Bad manners, what would her parents say?

“I’m going to be devastatingly honest and admit that half my problem with her is that, in her domains, she was better than I was. Crushed my ego.”

That almost made her smile, although his tone was worryingly flat.

After high table, she had to adjudicate a dispute between Colonel Ragath and Medical. Ragath was typically blunt, Medical was typically blunter, and she ended up siding with Ragath. After that she slept again. She thought she could get used to that.

When she wasn’t at the command center, she felt driven to talk to Jedao. Making the most of what time remained. “Do you know what happened to your previous anchors?” she asked.

She was asking if he would know, or care, what became of her, but he was kind enough not to call her on it. “No one ever told me,” Jedao said. “I tried asking, but it was discouraged. So when I say I think Kel Command will have a use for you, that’s conjecture. On the other hand, I have a certain amount of experience with how Kel Command thinks. I’m probably right.”

“When the Nirai run tests on you, what’s that like?”

“It depends on the test. If you ever have to take a personality assessment that’s all about fruit, remember that they don’t like it when you associate pomegranates with fertility. Which I had thought was standard, but who knows what that’s about." And then: "Tell me something about yourself, Cheris. What it was like in the City of Ravens Feasting. That luckstone means something to you, but you haven’t looked at it since I–since I spoiled it for you.”

“I spent my childhood trying to leave,” Cheris said, wishing they didn’t have to talk about it. But it seemed only fair to answer. “I told you once I’m natural-born. My mother’s people are old-fashioned, barely within approved norms. Most of them are concentrated in a ghetto in the city, although we lived near one of the parks. I didn’t speak the high language until I entered school, and then I couldn’t get rid of the accent until Kel Academy.”

“I’ve never heard you speak your native language.”

She felt a rush of embarrassment. “I don’t speak it well anymore." Was she embarrassed because of her ineptitude, or because she spoke it at all? She couldn’t tell.

"There was a ferocious dispute when I was young,” Jedao said, “over which language the heptarchate was going to standardize on. There were three reasonable candidates based on population sizes, and a lot of unreasonable ones. Then there were several minority factions pushing artificially constructed languages for the purpose, only one of which ever caught on. Tieneved won, mostly because it had support among the Andan and a significant fraction of the Kel spoke it, the way the demographics shook out. You might say the poets and guns settled the matter in combination.”

“I wonder why they don’t do away with the low languages,” Cheris said. The idea alarmed her. She wasn’t sure why she cared; why it hurt her.

“Too hard to control,” Jedao said. “Look at historical linguistics sometime. If you think about the fact that the high language I speak natively isn’t the high language you speak, you’ll see the problem. Multiply drift over time by factions, ethnic groups, and the number of settlements in the hexarchate, and it becomes a nightmare.”

“Is Tieneved your native language?”

“Fox and hound, no, although it was easy enough to learn. Even with the consonant changes to the present day–if you look at my birth name you can tell. ‘Shkan’ contains a consonant cluster that isn’t permitted in Classical Tieneved.”

“Languages aren’t my strong suit,” Cheris said ruefully. “Does your name mean something?”

“Does yours?”

An exchange, then. “In the old tradition,” Cheris said, “I would have been named after–after a saint’s day in the old calendar. A heretical calendar. So instead my parents named me after the day in the high calendar I was born on. 'Cheris’ is the word for 'twenty-three.' It’s a vigesimal system. That’s all it is.”

“My mother had three children by three different fathers,” Jedao said. “She found this tremendously funny. My mother was an eccentric by the town’s standards. You’re not supposed to name children after living relatives, it’s disrespectful, but Shkan was my father’s name. I only met him a few times. My other name is derived from a root that means something like 'honesty.' You can bet that made my life hell when that got out at Shuos Academy. Of course, at Shuos Academy you can count on everything to get out. But that’s all there is, nothing exciting.”

“Your mother was a farmer?”

Jedao sighed. “She was an agricultural researcher for the government. She did small farm things on the side because they amused her. And to provide chores for her offspring.”

The thought of Jedao doing farm chores was tremendously amusing. There was a paucity of amusing things in her life lately.

“I have no complaints about my childhood,” Jedao said, “and anyway the Nirai scraped it over for clues already.”

She had forgotten again that he was a madman. It was almost going to be a relief when Kel Command removed her, unstapled her from Jedao, so she knew what things to believe again. At this rate he was going to ruin her for the Kel.

It occurred to her that Kel Command had already done that. (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

Anna, thanks for this update.
On Patreon, it's too bad since it has been a platform to support creators for a long time.

And on the deleted scene, I gotta read it soon omg

[Anna]

I didn't read the deleted scene yet, I'll save it for a day when I need it :)

[Anna]

That was quick, first YHL newsletter today! I'll copy a part of it here, because it might be of interest.

--

Issue #1 of Foxes Are Totally Trustworthy

FAQ (Foxily Asked Questions)

What are you working on right now?

I recently turned in Thousand Worlds #3, Fox Snare - that’s my middle grade space opera (#1 Dragon Pearl, #2 Tiger Honor). That will probably come out sometime next year (2023) but I don’t have a release date yet. I’m currently working on edits for the first book of a YA mecha/space opera trilogy. That one definitely doesn’t have a release date.

I’m also working on edits to the Ninefox Gambit TTRPG, forthcoming from Android Press sometime in 2023. What’s exciting is that beyond the rules set and appendices (with things like “statted” versions of major characters, worldbuilding notes), it will come with three scenarios so you can get started playing more quickly. Those are being written by Marie Brennan, an excellent writer with extensive experience in game writing and a background in anthropology; you might be familiar with her Lady Trent series, as well as the Rook and Rose epic fantasy books by M. A. Carrick (Marie is one half of that pen name; the other is writer Alyc C. Helms).

Will there be more hexarchate books?

At the moment I’m hard at work on a YA space opera! However, the Ninefox Gambit TTRPG should release next year (see above) and I have some Thoughts on a possible novella or short stories. You know, in my infinite free time.

[Kaa]

Thank you for posting, this was a good reminder to sign up for the newsletter!

[Anna]

From issue #2 of Foxes Are Totally Trustworthy :(


As of this moment, Machineries is currently a closed canon, with no further story material planned, for strategic reasons I can’t get into.

Are you really serious that there will be no more hexarchate stories? You said something different last newsletter!

To answer backwards, yes, I said something different last newsletter, and yes, I’m really serious. I have Reasons for this, although nothing interesting in terms of concrete news. Sorry to disappoint!

[Rachel]

Well that’s sad.
Maybe it will
Change in the future

[Anna]

Yeah, maybe the Reason is will resolve itself.

[Anna]

9Vixen Gambit: https://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/4648069....

(Probably funniest if you're a math nerd.)

[Anna]

https://locusmag.com/2023/06/cover-re...

Ninefox Gambit RPG preorders are open! Out in October 2023.

[Kaladin]

They have made Ninefox into a game? Nice! The first book is my favourite out of the series.

[Anna]

Finally!

New adult scifi from YHL:

"CODE AND CODEX, about plans to reach backwards and forwards in time by revising history in this space opera adventure of linguistics magic in the author's return to adult science fiction, to Joe Monti at Saga Press, in a pre-empt, for publication in summer 2025, by Seth Fishman at The Gernert Company (NA)."

[Kaladin]

Sounds interesting!

[Anna]

https://ninefoxgambit.com/
https://ninefoxgambit.com/?page_id=16

Ninefox comic series starting. Starts with backstory for Cheris, spoilers for everything Ninefox, also changes to original book series to be expected. Updates via dedicated newsletter (second link) every 22 pages or so.

[Silvana]

Anna wrote: "https://ninefoxgambit.com/
https://ninefoxgambit.com/?page_id=16

Ninefox comic series starting. Starts with backstory for Cheris, spoilers for everything Ninefox, also changes to original book ser..."

I have mixed feelings. yay Ninefox comics! But, why the reboot though?

[Anna]

My guess is that since he can no longer write more books in the universe, because they didn't sell well enough, but isn't ready to let it go, just like many of us readers, this is just a new way to continue creating in the series. New artform, familiar surroundings :)

[Silvana]

Anna wrote: "My guess is that since he can no longer write more books in the universe, because they didn't sell well enough, but isn't ready to let it go, ..."

nawww this is just so sad. But yes I will gobble up anything in MoE world!

[Anna]

https://bsky.app/profile/deuceofgears...

”Hi, I figured out where Jedao Two ~went! but also I have a different book to write and I start an MA in September, so.”

😮

[Rachel]

!!!