Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Ninefox Gambit

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

27 reviews

hevs's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Czekałam na taką książkę chyba dekadę. Jest łogiń, nie czekam na polskie wydania dalszych tomów tylko lecę czytać w oryginale.

Content Warnings

danielles_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

It was important to acknowledge numbers, especially when the dead were dead by your doing.

I am kicking myself for not reading this book sooner!!! This is military epic space opera at its finest: truly alien with immersive world building, complicated and nuanced characters, and a tense story. The scope is so huge and intricate and the writing is so smooth that I can’t believe this was Lee’s debut!!!

Honestly, this is the sci-fi version of what I expected The Traitor Baru Cormorant to be like 😅 It’s also got political intrigue, morally grey characters, and overthrow of a government, but it was sooo much more intriguing with characters that were still sympathetic, even though at times it was just as confusing.

The first two chapters took me a few tries to read and understand. This book really just throws you into the deep end without any info dumping. The info that is directly provided is done seamlessly within the text, and is only what you need. Everything else is mostly implied, but the major concepts started to make more sense to me in chapter 3. I’m still a little confused on the whole calendar as math keeping society together thing lol, but I read an interview of Lee’s where he mentioned past real world civilizations starting wars over changing calendar systems, which helped me appreciate the concept more. I see a lot of reviewers say this book has too much math, but I don’t think that’s accurate. There wasn’t much direct math—it’s just that the world building starts out so confusing and happens to be based on math. This world is also subtly more Eastern-inspired than Western, which is very refreshing in a space opera. It also includes references to assimilation and language / cultural differences between different peoples of the empire. Despite the oppression, the society is queernormative and equal between genders, and both main MCs are queer!

The layers in this though!! I did not expect what ended up happening in the end, and I loved how it was done. Such a novel concept to show

Spoiler

flashbacks from Jedao’s past directly from Cheris’ eyes, as if she was Jedao. It really humanized both characters. I didn’t expect Jedao to be rebelling against the heptarchate but it makes perfect sense. Now I’m also thinking Hexarch Mikodez is in on it too? Somehow. And Kujen is an interesting character… wonder what he’s going to do next.

I am really excited for the next book—what a cliffhanger!

I really liked Cheris as a character, and to see her wrangle with the effects of her commands was so good. Oh yeah, and her caring for the servitors when no one else even noticed them!! I’m a sucker for characters like that. I am really looking forward to learning more about her character separate from Kel Command and even Jedao. Lee also included short POVs of regular soldiers that really made me care for each person so quickly (must be from his practice of writing short stories). It was the same kind of thing Tasha Suri did in The Burning Kingdoms books, but frankly I think Lee did it better, as it flowed in the narrative better and didn’t take up as much space as hers did.

I considered giving this 5 stars, but ultimately it lost some points for essentially being one long battle scene until the last 10% or so. There were a lot of moving pieces, yes, but I think some of the middle portion could have been cut. It wasn’t clear where the book was going until the very end, and the constant battle speak and deaths started to get exhausting (which I think was intentional to prove a point but still). Regardless, I read half of this book while waiting in line for Anime Expo, and it was definitely a great book to keep me company.

I can’t wait to continue on in the series! I am so impressed by Lee already.

~Yours in calendrical heresy~

“Be more assertive. You tend to defer to Nerevor. The problem with authority is that if you leave it lying around, others will take it away from you. You have to act like a general or people won’t respect you as one.”

Content Warnings

qteabeans's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is my second time reading this book, which is saying a lot as someone who almost never re-reads things. A thoughtful space opera that is both a self-contained book and also an intriguing launch point for the trilogy that I'm excited to read. This book covers expansive themes of selfhood, loyalty, and memory all while still telling a story of intrigue as the main storyline.

Content Warnings

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

can't tell if I just have no brain power at the moment or if the worldbuilding and plot legitimately are never explained in a way that makes sense. want to maybe give it another shot in the future to see if my feelings change, but for now, just kind of impenetrable

Content Warnings

ofbooksandechos's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Content Warnings

sandragloz's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Jedao🥲

Content Warnings

bluejay21's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

telescopewizard's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.75

FAV SERIES OF ALL TIME I THINK? PLS READ THIS BOOK.

the reason for the -.25 star is that it IS kind of insane and confusing on a first read, so if complex magic/scifi systems aren't ur think it may be tough to get thru
but imho: said magic/scifi system is just so FUCKIN COOL that it makes up for it. it's kinetic! it comes at u fast! but if ur stressed u can just focus on the big picture and u will be fine, even if u gotta give up on understanding all the details right away. quoth this review from Strange Horizons:

"You know what's going on, right?" Ninefox Gambit asks. Often, you have to say, "Uh, yeah, of course," when the real answer is "I have no idea, but I really, really care." And then you keep reading.

anyway all that said, it definitely benefits from a reread after you get thru the rest of the series. i feel really galaxy-brained right now like "ah yes of COURSE, the CALENDRICAL SPIKE!"

other notes about other aspects:

smth i really appreciated this time was how the structuring does not let up for even a single second as it tries to convey to u how deeply fucked up kel warfare is. the red shirt kel POV chapters come more and more frequently as u get closer to the end, and YHL is a master of giving characters instant personality + history, so like u meet an entire human person and then immediately u watch them commit heinous acts and/or have heinous acts committed unto them in the name of kel command. oof
had an epiphany: i like this so much because it is grown-up artemis fowl ?!?!? like not exactly of course but the vibes.. cheris is so similar to holly short (and jedao is similar enough to artemis that it's really amusing to me). complex magic system with lots of great techy jargon. detailed plots and schemes. and the writing style itself -- the way it zooms in on random side characters to flesh out the universe, the constant ironic sense of humor that the prose has so that no scene is ever totally bleak and depressing, there's always a knife's edge of irony or just plain goofiness. i don't mean to say that there's copying going on here (they r substantially different books), just that if u liked AF in middle school, u will prob like this as an adult <3
falling to PIECES the ENTIRE TIME abt how incredible cheris & jedao are, both as characters individually and as a duo. i've never read the whole series back-to-back before and i'm kind of scared about what it's gonna do to my brain chemistry because i already have such strong cheris & jedao feelings that it makes me have a physical reaction whenever they say things. ANYWAY! ON TO BOOK 2!

Content Warnings

lucystolethesky's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

reebeee's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Good book if you enjoy sci-fi warfare and military strategy—as other reviews mention, it requires a tolerance for a wide array of made-up terms. Also as other reviews have noted, Cheris could have used some more development—we don’t get much of a backstory, or motivation, or relationships for her. She’s mostly a foil for Jedao and a stand-in for the reader in her reactions. She’s not annoying though, and I appreciate that one of her defining features is loyalty, which is fun to play with when so many narratives start with rebellious protagonists.

The side characters are vivid and interesting, but ultimately don’t play large or long-lasting roles in the narrative

Spoiler

not least because practically all of them die at the end of the book

. I appreciated the way that Lee emphasized the brutality of war and the abruptness of death—some of the passages reminded me of the Iliad in that sense.

Spoiler

But a book is a narrative, after all, and it would be nice for at least one interesting side character other than Kujen to have lived. Not every side character has to be gun-fodder to demonstrate the futility of war, and any plot- or world-building potential of characters like Nerevor, Vahenz, and Zai remains unused.

I enjoyed this book's premise and characters, and I'll probably end up reading the sequels, but in the end, Ninefox's potential was more promising than its actuality.

Content Warnings

More...