[books] Talk to me about Ninefox Gambit?

[kaberett]

I have just finished it, rather late to the party (I was stuck, for several months, partway through Kalpa Imperial, which I found rather a slog, and suspect I didn't understand). I have a lot of inchoate thoughts about the ethics/mechanics/pragmatics of the ending, which I would like to sort of flap at people about, and in general I enjoyed it a lot and am really looking forward to subsequent books.

Links to discussion posts I avoided around release due to Spoilers v welcome.

(The author, Yoon Ha Lee, is on DW as yhlee and I greatly enjoy reading the short fiction including crackfic AUs of this series that he posts, along with everything else.)

Comments

[kaberett]

(I have now dug out the official open thread.)

[korafox]

Omigosh, I just finished it the other day myself! Took a little while to get it out of the library. I also enjoyed it very much. Jedao is such a fascinating character, and I think what I'm looking forward to the most is seeing how the merged consciousness thing plays out in the next book.

[davidgillon]

My favourite book since the Ancillary series, just so gorgeously gothic.

ETA link to my (spoilery) review: http://davidgillon.dreamwidth.org/92072.html

[vass]

*flaps wildly at you*

(I found Kalpa Imperial difficult going too, for the same reason.)

The mechanics of writing about dysphoria in the context of Cheris and Jedao's situation. And the end, too. That image of Cheris crawling around in the broken glass, gathering up the fragments, brr. I can't wait to see how it continues.

Jedao as kind of a Lymond figure (I forget if you've read the Lymond books?) except that he's earned his self-condemnation in a way Lymond hasn't actually (Lymond's self-hatred is based in trauma from things he's had done to him or been forced to do, whereas Jedao's stuff is a lot more moral injury.) But with the same tactical deployment of terrible reputation, willfully allowing people to believe the worst of him if it suits his purpose, and then having that explode in his face and feel like an arsehole (BECAUSE HE IS BEING AN ARSEHOLE) when he hurts other people in the process (even when he knew and accepted all along that hurting people would be necessary to his goals.)

The whole exploration of how much evil it is allowable to do, to overthrow evil. Like you said -- inchoate. I'm afraid my conclusions are in about the same place as they are when I reread The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, in that I end up frozen in indecision even reading about it, so I suspect that is what I would do faced with that situation in real life -- what I am doing with it in real life. And that will not do.)

Factions and the personality traits people associate with/project onto them. The finer gradations within the factions, where people identify as a particular type of hawk/fox/etc.

The technology sort of reminds me of how lands work in Magic The Gathering (with the caveat that I've never actually played MTG and could have it all wrong about how that works.)

Brave robots. Brave robots who, I suspect, pick their names based on how cool the number sequences are. Like 24816.

Fanfic rec: Blood Imari by Isis, DID SOMEONE ORDER CRACK? Wait, that was me, I ordered crack. In that I requested it for Trick or Treat.