talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Death, Murder, Gore, and War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Genocide, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Rape
Minor: Child death, Torture, Sexual content, Suicide, Ableism, Transphobia, and Dysphoria
ofbooksandechos's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Violence, Death, and War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Rape
Minor: Torture and Suicide
anna_hepworth's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
In short: I loved it, and I want more people to read it.
In long: I've heard a lot of good things about this series, but none of them prepared me for how much I was going to love this story, how invested I was going to be in how the complex strands of politics and warfare across time and space are woven together.
While the plot is good, and the characterisation is impressive, what held me in this story was the world-building, and the way that the writing slowly exposes it. Yoon Ha Lee has developed a mathematics and a magic that are one and the same, and that influence everything that happens in the story.
Difficult parts of the story: The sheer numbers of sacrificial deaths, and the fact that just to maintain the government system, torture is a necessity. Fortunately the torture is only referenced, but the sheer numbers of senseless deaths do happen as necessary parts of the story.
If you are someone who usually doesn't like complex political shenanigans and the logistics of war, it may still be worth reading this.
In long: I've heard a lot of good things about this series, but none of them prepared me for how much I was going to love this story, how invested I was going to be in how the complex strands of politics and warfare across time and space are woven together.
While the plot is good, and the characterisation is impressive, what held me in this story was the world-building, and the way that the writing slowly exposes it. Yoon Ha Lee has developed a mathematics and a magic that are one and the same, and that influence everything that happens in the story.
Difficult parts of the story: The sheer numbers of sacrificial deaths, and the fact that just to maintain the government system, torture is a necessity. Fortunately the torture is only referenced, but the sheer numbers of senseless deaths do happen as necessary parts of the story.
If you are someone who usually doesn't like complex political shenanigans and the logistics of war, it may still be worth reading this.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, War, and Body horror
Minor: Torture
Details on the body horror:Spoiler
The soldier class have 'formation instinct', which reads as a brainwashing mechanism that means that the person no longer has control of their own body. There is also possession of one character by the consciousness of another as an important part of the plotmanshonyagger's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Torture and Genocide
hauntedtesty's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Police brutality, Xenophobia, Torture, Blood, Genocide, and War
Moderate: Rape
intoblossom's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
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
3.0
Mostly for the worldbuilding.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Gore, and Gun violence
Moderate: Genocide and Torture
Minor: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Suicide
confusedmuse's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, War, Blood, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide
Moderate: Body horror, Dysphoria, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Confinement, Colonisation, Grief, Murder, Self harm, and Torture
ailsaod's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book took a bit of getting into - the first chapter is set in a battle scene in which horrible things that are both gory and confusing happen to the soldiers. It took quite a while to figure out what the deal was with this book (when people say it is ancillary justice crossed with divergent they are certainly right!). This combination sounds improbable and when I first saw it did not fill me with joy but it is more like Ancillary Justice (in that the setting is a massive evil space empire and everyone is queer) with the faction system being a little more complex than that of Divergent and there is a bunch of stuff a bit like astrology? I'm not a fan of astrology so those elements took a bit of getting used to. Lee also has a somewhat disorienting way of progressing a story which was the only thing that stopped me from giving this book five stars. Sometimes scenes or joins between scenes were a little disorienting or I found it difficult to visualise what was happening with the tactics.
However, despite these obstacles in the way of my enjoyment I still had a great time reading this book. Something about Lee's characters made me get very attached to them in very short amounts of time - even minor side characters - so when they inevitably met a nasty end I was like :( . Cheris and Jedao are the main characters and I liked both of them (for very different reasons!). Jedao is terrifying! From the beginning we know his reputation while his motivations are very much unknown and this combined with him basically being a ghost make him a little scary already. Then Lee wrote a couple of terrifying scenes and the I was feeling just as scared as Cheris! Jedao is the kind of person MCU Loki wishes he was! I think Lee does a good job explaining why Jedao went on his murder spree without forcing the reader to sympathise.
I would advise anyone who doesn't like reading about genocide, weapons of mass destruction (and their gory effects on squishy humans) to maybe skip this one as although the way people are killed is very abstract it is still quite disturbing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and War
Moderate: Body horror, Colonisation, Genocide, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Torture
lbevs's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I adore this book with the bottom of my heart, but it is Exhausting. This book put me through the ringer emotionally, but I loved reading it. Lee’s writing is pretty aggressive, and while I think the worldbuilding is really strong, there’s almost no exposition so you have to figure it out while you’re reading. So if you don’t want to feel like you’re putting together a puzzle while you’re reading, this might not be a great match for you. That said, I found it brilliant, and I fell in love with the characters while staying on the edge of my seat. Also, this books (and series) has good LGBT+ rep, but no (or not a lot of) romance.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Body horror
Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, and Death
Minor: Torture, Rape, and Genocide
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
- 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? It's complicated
5.0
The worldbuilding in NINEFOX GAMBIT is deep and immersive and very detailed in a way that sometimes was a little overwhelming, but the dynamic between the MC and her shadowy guide help to make sure that the importance of something was explained even if the details or dizzying and arcane and fantastic, the characters weren’t worried about making sure I would know what was going on, but the structure of the book itself and the setup for the main characters combined to make sure that even if I didn’t know what a word or detail meant in this world, I knew why it mattered. “Hard sci-fi“ is a phrase that almost feels appropriate here, but is wholly inadequate to summarize the way the little details makes this book shine. It’s hard sci-fi from a different universe, with all the precision and technical jargon from a world where the way someone stands in a formation aligns with their calendar to create devastating beauty and destruction in a battle, where manipulating holy days can change everything.
My favorite thing in this book is I now get to add “calendrical rot” to my vocabulary, I don’t know how I will use it after this but I’m very glad to have it now. My second favorite thing is the way that behavioral manipulation and mind games are shown in such a subtle and empathetic way. I was so immersed in the MC‘s perspective that while I trusted her as a narrator, my understanding of what was going on was very tied to how much she did or did not figure out about what her shadowy companion was doing, since we never get his perspective. Their conversations are fascinating, the way they jointly and separately have to navigate the MC’s ability to have conversations with other people led to some great moments, and it meant that wow there were times that had pretty straightforward delivery of a lot of information, they only technically fell in the category of info dump because they were things that naturally needed to be explained. Even the little moments where the companion comments on the way something has changed was used artfully so that the reader could care more about what it Is even though the MC needed to learn what it Was.
I’m a big fan of interstitial chapters and the ones here are fantastic examples of world-building and subtle character development. They’re funny and add up to be very informative but the story will still make sense if you don’t pay attention to them. They’re a window into a perspective that’s very different from the MC, and this is used in a combination of explicit and implicit world-building to show literally what someone says about their actions and to demonstrate other ways of thinking about events shown in the main chapters.
My favorite thing in this book is I now get to add “calendrical rot” to my vocabulary, I don’t know how I will use it after this but I’m very glad to have it now. My second favorite thing is the way that behavioral manipulation and mind games are shown in such a subtle and empathetic way. I was so immersed in the MC‘s perspective that while I trusted her as a narrator, my understanding of what was going on was very tied to how much she did or did not figure out about what her shadowy companion was doing, since we never get his perspective. Their conversations are fascinating, the way they jointly and separately have to navigate the MC’s ability to have conversations with other people led to some great moments, and it meant that wow there were times that had pretty straightforward delivery of a lot of information, they only technically fell in the category of info dump because they were things that naturally needed to be explained. Even the little moments where the companion comments on the way something has changed was used artfully so that the reader could care more about what it Is even though the MC needed to learn what it Was.
I’m a big fan of interstitial chapters and the ones here are fantastic examples of world-building and subtle character development. They’re funny and add up to be very informative but the story will still make sense if you don’t pay attention to them. They’re a window into a perspective that’s very different from the MC, and this is used in a combination of explicit and implicit world-building to show literally what someone says about their actions and to demonstrate other ways of thinking about events shown in the main chapters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Body horror, Violence, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Child death, Torture, Sexual assault, and Suicide
CW for ableism, panic attacks/disorders, gore, body horror, violence, torture (not depicted), sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, suicide (backstory), murder, child death (backstory), death.