Ninefox Gambit is military science fiction for people who love mathematics

Detail from the cover of Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. (credit: Chris Moore)

Plato believed mathematics was the highest form of beauty, being entirely concerned with universal truths and untarnished by base desire. 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 makes all of this real.

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. 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. Though its setting may be complex, the novel's basic premise is relatively simple. A disgraced general, Cheris, seeks redemption by liberating a fortress that has been overtaken by enemy forces. To accomplish this, she does what all protagonists in her situation invariably do: ally herself with an unsavoury character. In this case, it's Jedao, an undead tactician who just so happens to be a mass murderer.

A 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. At the same time, Lee makes no excuses for violence and does not shy away from illuminating the grisly ramifications of war fought between people who often have more in common than they admit. “The Kel formation held as they butchered their way through the Eels," he writes. “Cheris made a point of noticing the Eels’ faces. They weren’t much different from the faces of her own soldiers: younger and older, dark skin and pale, eyes mostly brown or sometimes grey.”

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