Raven Stratagem - Yoon Ha Lee

One of the most exciting novels I read last year was Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit. It offered fast-paced space opera combined with a strange mathematical system that governs space travel, and society. Between the action, Lee has a thing or two to say about totalitarian states and oppression as well. Ninefox Gambit is the opening volume in his Machineries of Empire trilogy. The second book, Raven Stratagem, was released this month. This sequel pick up the story directly after the end of the first novel, but takes a slightly different approach. One would almost say a more conventional one.

General Jedao, long dead military genius and war criminal, has been set loose on the universe again. With the Hexarchie threatened by the Hafn, there is a job to do. But Jedao is dangerously unstable, unpredictable and not adverse to killing large numbers of people. When he takes over a fleet of spaceships, the Hexarchs get worried. Jedao is quickly outlawed but that doesn't break his command over the fleet. With an external enemy ready to strike, an internal conflict reaching a boiling point and a rogue general on the loose, it is hard to see how the conflict can be resolved without massive loss of life. Nevertheless, some parties are trying to achieve just that.

Raven Stratagem is not as heavy on space battles as its predecessor. There are a few to be sure, but most of the book deals with political manoeuvring. Where the reader gets thrown into the middle of the story in Ninefox Gambit, in this book we get to see much more of the political structure of the empire. It is a system everybody involved feels is rotten to the core. Every generation it becomes crueller, more violent and less tolerant. It takes more and more effort to keep within the narrow boundaries of calendrical orthodoxy. It is an empire rapidly approaching the breaking point.

One of the more interesting aspects of the novel is that most of the faction leaders seem to be perfectly aware of the weakness of the empire and its slow, long descent into madness. Most of them are not prepared to change the tiniest bit in face of this problem. Keeping their position is more important. To raise the stakes a bit further, the novel explores immortality. It is within reach for Hexarchy elite. The price for society as a whole, would be considerable though. Imagine having your leadership staying in place for centuries, slowly going mad, without even the possibility that at some point they will snuff it and let someone else have a go. The hexarchs are not a cheery bunch, that's for sure.

Most of the story was told from Cheris' point of view in the previous novel. In Raven Stratagem, Jedao/Cheris is not a point of view character. We get to see quite a lot of the general through the eyes of others though. Lee cleverly uses other points of view to show us what formation instinct, an effect of the calendrical system that ensures loyalty in the Kel soldiers, works on an individual scale. Loyalty, it would appear, is more complex than the mathematician who designed the calendar seems to have imagined.

What has remained constant in these books is the oppressive nature of the society Lee describes. The almost casual way in which populations are subjected to horrible violence for even the minutest deviation from the norm is terrifying. More than once characters mention how they do not relish having to kill large numbers of people, but do so anyway. They seem to think their actions are inevitable, even when faced with the evidence of the flaws in the system. Part of the machine that somehow robs them of initiative and absolves them of personal responsibility. Lee's parting shot in this novel is particularly poignant in that light.

The pace of the novel is perhaps a tad lower than the first book in the series. Apart from taking the time to show the reader a bit more of the hexarchate, Lee is also building up for the third volume. I wouldn't go so far as to say the novel suffers from middle book syndrome however, it has a strong story arc and definite climax of its own. It is clear that there is more to come though. One thing I wondered about at the end of the novel is the circular nature of the calendar, and what that implies for the future of the empire.

All things considered, Raven Stratagem is a worthy successor to Ninefox Gambit. It is fast and lean space opera. A dark and grim story. The kind of novel that does not coddle the reader, but challenges to look beyond the explosions and window dressing, and explore such themes as the dark side of human social structures, and the meaning of loyalty and humanity in the face of immortality. This trilogy is looking better and better. I already look forward to the third volume.

Book Details
Title: Raven Stratagem
Author: Yoon Ha Lee
Publisher: Solaris
Pages: unknown
Year: 2017
Language: English
Format: E-ARC
ISBN: 978-1-78618-046-9
First published: 2017

Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit is the first of three novels in The Machineries of Empire series. It is Lee's début in the long form. He  has several dozen short stories in the past fifteen years though, a selection of which can be found in the collection Conservation of Shadows (2013). Lee's work shifts between fantasy and science fiction. There are magical and mythological elements but also a fondness of mathematics and far future narratives present in his stories. I know of one other story set in the same universe as Ninefox Gambit. The Battle of Candle Arc (2012)  is set centuries before the novel but features one of the characters in this book. The story is included in the aforementioned collection. The publication of Ninefox Gambit casts the story notes at the back of Conservation of Shadows in a different light.

In a far future the Hexarchate rules over a vast volume of space. Their powers is based on calendriacal mathematics. It allows them to shape reality but only works in very specific circumstances. The calendar is a religion, one guarded by ritual torture and endless warfare to crush heresy. Captain Kel Cheris is one of the soldiers ensuring the unity of the empire. She has a talent for mathematics that makes her both dangerous and useful to the hexarchate. Cheris is recalled after a mission and asked to file a plan to retake a strategically important fortress fallen into the hands of a new heretical movement. Cheris sees no other option than to request the aid of general Jedao, the empires most brilliant general and its worst traitor. Jedao is a dangerous weapon to use, as Cheris will find out when trying to retake the fortress.

Ninefox Gambit is pure space opera. It is set in a far future, on the largest possible canvas. There are powerful space ships, huge battles and strange technologies made possible by copious amounts of handwavium. It took me a while to figure out the internal logic of the novel but once that falls into place it quickly becomes clear the characters are playing for high stakes. It's a fast, exciting, and action packed plot. A Hollywood CGI company would have a field day recreating some of the battle scenes. There is a bit more to the novel than just big explosions however.

In my review of Conservation of Shadows I said some of the characters reminded me a bit of Frank Herbert's characters. Particularly the ones in the final two Dune novels, where quite a few characters can fall back on the wisdom and experience from generations past. The ancient general Cheris is using for her mission has long since been executed. He is brought back very infrequently. On very few occasions the gain outweighs the risk of letting him loose on the universe. They release him by attaching him to another character. He does not, in other words, have a body of his own. For the moment he is stuck with Cheris, who is the only one who can communicate with him directly.

Lee makes good use of this lopsided relationship in the novel. A brilliant general with centuries of experience and a reputation for being unpredictable and more than a little mad, ought to be in the driving seat when dealing with a captain bumped up to general, used to obeying and very much out of her element. Cheris has one skill Jedao lacks however. It is not very apparent in most of this novel, but I suspect it will be important in future books. There is a good balance in the novel between the immediate demands of present developments and the interplay between these characters and their clashing agendas.

In the background of the novel there is another element that will probably run through the entire trilogy. The state Lee describes is a totalitarian one. The power of the calendrical mathematics is great but also results in a lot of repression. As the title of the series suggests, it is a machine crushing the individual who steps outside the narrow boundaries acceptable to the hexarchate. The machine of the state devours heretics but is not too careful with its Kel, the soldiers of the empire, either. It instils a scary kind of fanaticism in its soldiers. A good Kel soldier will die rather than disrupt the formation. Formations, much like society, need to stay within very narrowly defined boundaries to reap the benefits of the calendrical system. It's gleichschaltung on a frightening scale.

The system is also very inflexible and surprisingly vulnerable. The mathematics behind it, is only fully understood by one of the leaders of the six factions that make up the hexarchate. Heresy rears its head with depressing frequency and the empire seems to have external as well as internal enemies. Cheris, doesn't know half of this at the opening of the novel and completely accepts this situation. Obedience is drilled into her by the Kel after all. Her changing attitude during the novel is a fine bit of character building.

Ninefox Gambit is very much the setup for a series. It ends at a natural point in the story but it also leaves many questions unanswered. It is a book that is very hard to rate until the shape of the overall story becomes known. I enjoyed reading it a lot tough and I think the series has great potential. Lee balances a fast paced story with enough reflections on power and characterization to make it an intriguing read. He does all of this in a fairly concise novel. Where some space opera is bloated to epic fantasy proportions, Lee keeps the page count reasonable. This novel may well be the start of something special. I look forward to reading the second volume.

Book Details
Title: Ninefox Gambit
Author: Yoon Ha Lee
Publisher: Solaris
Pages: 259
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: E-ARC
ISBN: 978-1-84997-992-4
First published: 2016

Conservation of Shadows - Yoon Ha Lee

The poll to vote for reviewed work number 400 is open a view more days. Don't forget to put in you vote!
 

 I've seen a lot of positive comments about this collection floating around the blogsphere so when I realized I hadn't reviewed a collection for a while Conservation of Shadows by the Korean-American author Yoon Ha Lee seemed like an obvious choice. When I picked it up I thought I hadn't read any of Lee's work before. That didn't turn out to be correct. I had in fact read Swanwatch before as part of the John Joseph Adams anthology Federations. The stories in this collection are a selection from what he's published between 2001 and 2013. The collection contains 16 pieces of short fiction and an introduction by Aliette de Bodard. Lee is not hugely productive and hasn't published any novels to date but his short fiction has definitely been noticed. It has appeared in some in magazines like Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld and Lightspeed magazine.

Lee's writing is something you won't come across often. His prose is very poetic and thematically a lot of Asian influences are included. Lee has a bachelor in Mathematics and he has used this as an influence on his stories as well. It makes for an interesting mixture of mathematical concepts and magical plot elements. The stories range form fantasy to science fiction, but in each of them you get the feeling that there is a real scientific concept at the base of the plot. Lee can make a magical system seem rational like no one else I've read.

The collection opens with one of the strongest stories. Ghostweight is a space opera in which the main character carries with her the souls of the dead. It is a very dark tale of revenge with an absolutely devastating climax. Not a very upbeat way to open the collection but it is one of the stories that had the greatest impact on me. Lee mentions in the story notes that it is set in the same universe as The Shadow Postulates, only in a far future. I don't think I would have seen that without her mentioning it.

The Shadow Postulates is the next story in the collection and one in which you can clearly see the mix of influences I mentioned above. It mixes magic and mathematics in very interesting ways. The story follows a student on the verge of graduating and struggling with a mathematical problem that generations of students have tried to crack. It builds towards a conceptual breakthrough in a way that shows Lee understands how to handle the pace of a story. I wasn't surprised to learn that it's partly inspired by Fermat's Last Theorem that nobody has been able to find for centuries. In fact, many now believe Fermat came up with a wrong proof. If I had to pick a favourite, this one may well be it.

It is hard to pick a favourite though, I greatly enjoyed the story Iseul's Lexicon as well. It's quite a complex tale that shows how language and culture are interwoven and how banning languages, over time, can be very effective in suppressing a culture. Lee used the Korean Hangeul, an alphabet that replaced the more complicated Chinese characters from the 15th century on, as an inspiration. The story also shows echoes of the complex and often violent history between Korea and Japan. There are a lot of layers to this story, on the surface there is a military campaign, spying and an interesting magical system, deeper down there are the references to our own world and the parallels with Korean history. Even if it is one of the longer pieces in the collection, I still couldn't shake the feeling that a novel is hiding in there somewhere.

In the story notes Lee mentions several pieces are related to unpublished novels. Iseul's Lexicon isn't mentioned as being one of those but The Battle of Candle Arc is. It is one of several that have a space opera setting and deals with interstellar warfare. War and the price to be paid for it, is one of the themes that pop up in a lot of stories. This one is a story inspired by another bit of Korean history, the 1597 battle of Myeongnyang, part of the Imjin war (1592-1598), in which the Korean fleet achieved a decisive victory of the the vastly numerically superior Japanese invasion fleet. The general in this story reminded me a bit of some of Frank Herbert's characters. The depth of his insight appears to be almost superhuman.

The Unstrung Zither is the last story in this collection I want to mention. It includes a mix of traditional music (it strikes me as Chinese inspired but I don't know enough about this subject to say for sure), elemental magic and a far future setting. The main character is a composer. She doesn't seem to feel she is brilliant at it, merely competent. Nevertheless she is entrusted with a very important mission. Music in this story, is more than a cultural expression. It appears to create structure in society. War and politics are discussed in terms we don't often associate with them. In finding the right structure for her composition, she finds the solution to the problem posed to her. I liked this piece very much although I wouldn't have minded knowing a bit more about the war at the heart of these events.

As usual, I've had a lot of trouble writing this review. It took me well over a week, where I usually do a draft in one day and clean it up the second. Short story collections are a pain to review but Conservation of Shadows was even more difficult than usual. Lee writes very complex stories. He packs a lot into a few pages and often steps outside the western cultural framework. He makes me work pretty hard and I'm sure I missed quite a bit. In fact, without the story notes I might very well have been lost completely.

I'm somewhat frustrated by my own inability to properly express why I enjoyed this collection so much. I guess it is a combination of things. I liked Lee's prose a lot for instance. I'm not one for audio books but from reading these stories I get the impression that it would sound beautiful if narrated skilfully. Then there are the themes Lee addresses that, despite the nagging feeling that I'm missing some of the context, still strike a chord with me. I guess you are just going to have to take my word for it, if you enjoy reading short fiction, Lee is an author you'll not want to miss.

Book Details
Title: Conservation of Shadows
Author: Yooh Ha Lee
Publisher: Prime Books
Pages: 336
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-60701-387-7
First published: 2013