In this case, it's Jedao, an undead tactician who just so happens to be a mass murderer.Ī fine piece of military fiction, Ninefox Gambit glitters with clever maneuvers and cunning ploys, heart-stopping action and hard decisions, all complicated by a repertoire of strange technologies. To accomplish this, she does what all protagonists in her situation invariably do: allies herself with an unsavoury character. A disgraced general, Cheris, seeks redemption by liberating a fortress that has been overtaken by enemy forces. Though its setting may be complex, the novel's basic premise is relatively simple. It is a place where war is “a game between competing sets of rules, fueled by the coherence of our beliefs” and “calendrical rot” can destabilize entire tracts of terrain. The world of Ninefox Gambit is a perilous, conflict-riddled conglomeration of planets and factions, inhabited by the members of the ruling hexarcate and rebellious heretics. Bertrand Russell described it as “a beauty cold and austere, sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.” There have even been modern studies that posit that “beautiful” equations engage our brains the way paintings and music do. And Yoon Ha Lee’s stunning debut novel, Ninefox Gambit ( US/ UK) makes all of this real. Plato believed mathematics was the highest form of beauty, being entirely concerned with universal truths and untarnished by base desire.
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