Lee makes good use of the concept of anchoring, exploring the two-minds-in-one-body from both humorous and sinister angles. It’s intricately plotted in a way that is frustrating for a reviewer who wishes to avoid spoilers, the central question of the novel is whether you can ever truly trust another person – even one who you share a skull with. This is a tale of wheels within wheels, secrets, hidden agendas, ulterior motives and plans that take centuries to reach fruition. Heresy can undermine the structures of society and bring the edifice crashing down. Understandably no one trusts Jedao, but the hexarchate – the society they belong to – feel they have no choice. Every once in a while, when circumstances demand his undeniable talents, he is resurrected and tasked with leading the Kel to victory. She is accompanied by the uncorporeal Shuos Jedao, a brutal tactical genius who went mad and massacred two armies – the enemy and his own – a crime for which his body was executed while his spirit was kept alive in the ‘black cradle’, making him an immortal prisoner. Captain Kel Cheris is chosen to lead an assault on the Fortress of Scattered Needles which has fallen to heretics. Ninefox Gambit, the first in Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire trilogy, grew out of his short story “The Battle of Candle Arc” (published in Clarkesworld October 2012) and is a military space opera on the kind of canvas fans of Iain M Banks will appreciate.
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