Ninefox Gambit is military science fiction for people who love mathematics

Yoon Ha Lee's debut novel is an exploration of military tactics and futuristic math.

Read the whole story

 

[JustQuestions]

Mathematics is definitely an artistic pursuit, and it is far deeper than "merely" quantifying the universe around us or looking for equations that explain physical phenomena.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't know this, and it's not their fault. Our education within mathematics in the USA and much of the Western world is horrific.

Here is an amazing essay on the subject

If you want the TL;DR, it's that mathematics is an art. It's perfectly acceptable and normal to dislike certain aspects of it, and it's a massive shame that the subject is taught without historical context. Just seemingly random equations being thrown at students who are then asked to memorize and regurgitate them. A travesty, and it absolutely hurts us, even from a practical perspective.

 

[aleph_nought]

As good as Use of Weapons? I loved how that book about a mercenary spent almost no time talking about tactics, instead delving into the protagonists' motivations towards a greater goal.

 

[peterford]

as a Greg Egan fan, this sounds very interesting.

If you've never read him, and like very hard sci-fi, look at Permutation City and Diaspora (with its staggering ending)

 

[schporto]

I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

 

[Meathim]

You had me on the title/subtitle.

schporto[/url]":1abxpmwc]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

As always Frank Herbert got it right with the word explanations at the back. Don't know if it's limited to certain editions though. And personally I don't see it as a big problem, but I geuss that depends on how its done.

EDIT:

JustQuestions[/url]":1abxpmwc]Mathematics is definitely an artistic pursuit, and it is far deeper than "merely" quantifying the universe around us or looking for equations that explain physical phenomena.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't know this, and it's not their fault. Our education within mathematics in the USA and much of the Western world is horrific.

Here is an amazing essay on the subject

If you want the TL;DR, it's that mathematics is an art. It's perfectly acceptable and normal to dislike certain aspects of it, and it's a massive shame that the subject is taught without historical context. Just seemingly random equations being thrown at students who are then asked to memorize and regurgitate them. A travesty, and it absolutely hurts us, even from a practical perspective.

Oh my word, I could never, ever have thought that my disjointed high school-views on math would actually be tied to reality. Thank you very much for that link! I shall share it further.

 

[Saikaici]

schporto[/url]":1dpu49fl]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

Sometimes I wouldn't mind that. However, I have more issues with the author just starting and not caring to craft an intro to draw me into the world.

Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings has been a really rough start for me. I'm just getting to the point where it's flowing more naturally.

 

[Ratte]

I do not love mathemathics but I love Yoon Ha Lee´s work.
Fantastic imagination and no handholding, perfect for me, but click on the “The Battle of Candle Arc,” link to see if it suits your taste.
A lot of Yoon Ha Lee´s short stories are available for free on the net, lots of links in the wikipedia article
Conservation of Shadows is a collection of some of his great short stories well worth reading.

As good as Use of Weapons ? Yes I think so but the writing and worldbuilding is very different.

 

[ewelch]

aleph_nought[/url]":2gokeayb]As good as Use of Weapons? I loved how that book about a mercenary spent almost no time talking about tactics, instead delving into the protagonists' motivations towards a greater goal.

I was just wondering if this author might be a good follow to Iain M. Banks works.

 

[notcoffeetable]

I've been looking for a fun book and this seems promising. Unfortunately, after repeated readings of the review, I fail to see how "the beauty of mathematics" enters into the storytelling. Will that be more clear after reading one of the author's short stories?

 

[aleph_nought]

Ratte[/url]":3bmov5hu]I do not love mathemathics but I love Yoon Ha Lee´s work.
Fantastic imagination and no handholding, perfect for me, but click on the “The Battle of Candle Arc,” link to see if it suits your taste.
A lot of Yoon Ha Lee´s short stories are available for free on the net, lots of links in the wikipedia article
Conservation of Shadows is a collection of some of his great short stories well worth reading.

As good as Use of Weapons ? Yes I think so but the writing and worldbuilding is very different.

I didn't find the description of the book to be appealing, especially with the tedious-sounding prose and tech-heavy invented words. Too often, authors do worldbuilding only to have those worlds peopled with dull cardboard characters.

I can put up with the obtuse bits by Iain M. Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson because I know I'll get to mindblowing prose after some hard slogging. Maybe I'll check out the author's short stories first before reading his novels.

 

[jimmiles]

I can highly recommend Neal Stephenson if you desire challenging, long books with many surprising passages buried within. Cryptonomicon is a good intro, but there are many more. Seveneves is the most commercially viable of his books, imo, but not necessarily the best for the twists and turns of his earlier works. If anyone can point me to an author like Neal Stephenson, I would appreciate it! I might check out Lee's stuff, too.

 

[nosmadar2016]

schporto[/url]":1kwy123b]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

Actually I'd rather just try to figure it out. For me, that's part of the fun, trying to puzzle out how things work in the book's universe, based solely on the clues provided by the Author. (And what I might already know about how things work in our universe.)

 

[MadMikey61]

Haven't read Stephenson yet, last hard sci/fi I read was Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds, great writing and wild ideas about space travel in the future.

 

[unequivocal]

schporto[/url]":34ihc9sx]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

I actually prefer many books that don't do this. I thought Ancillary Justice was really fun b/c there was so little context to understanding the world. Just the author's use of "she" as a universal pronoun was startling and insightful for me. Let alone trying to figure out what an ancillary was. The second book in the series didn't offer nearly this level of new material - just building a story in an already well defined world and I lost interest in the series..

 

[bongbong]

There is a thin line between good prose and highfalutin verbal diarhea

 

[ewelch]

aleph_nought[/url]":1klrtvbb]

Ratte[/url]":1klrtvbb]I do not love mathemathics but I love Yoon Ha Lee´s work.
Fantastic imagination and no handholding, perfect for me, but click on the “The Battle of Candle Arc,” link to see if it suits your taste.
A lot of Yoon Ha Lee´s short stories are available for free on the net, lots of links in the wikipedia article
Conservation of Shadows is a collection of some of his great short stories well worth reading.

As good as Use of Weapons ? Yes I think so but the writing and worldbuilding is very different.

I didn't find the description of the book to be appealing, especially with the tedious-sounding prose and tech-heavy invented words. Too often, authors do worldbuilding only to have those worlds peopled with dull cardboard characters.

I can put up with the obtuse bits by Iain M. Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson because I know I'll get to mindblowing prose after some hard slogging. Maybe I'll check out the author's short stories first before reading his novels.

As Bascule the Teller would say about Lee: "Hez the regyoolar gi we can idennify wif."

 

[BananaBonanza]

Plato believed mathematics was the highest form of beauty, being entirely concerned with universal truths

Somewhere in the great beyond, Gödel has probably been teasing him ever since …

 

[DM_Sledge]

I think I left my needs for pretentious writing that required me to push or slog through writing to get to the good parts. At some point I came to the conclusion that all of the book should be a good read. Reading that short story felt like a pile of technobabble to hide the fact that there is no actual story yet. I understand there is a background is his head about all of this information but when presented without that background then things don't make sense. Not liking this I did a little research until I found out that this is really just "magic" under a different name. Since none of the short story talks about any of the actual tech you could read it as any context, not necessarily space. When an author is so unclear that you have "puzzle out" what they are talking about I consider it just a bad read. Maybe its just because I enjoy a certain internal logical consistency, but when the author deliberately obfuscates their code you cannot see this consistency or correspondingly it can be inconsistent without your awareness. This leads to the rules changing all the time and plots that are resolved in a way that is not based on what has come before but merely by author fiat.

 

[aleph_nought]

ewelch[/url]":36s4322s]

aleph_nought[/url]":36s4322s]

Ratte[/url]":36s4322s]I do not love mathemathics but I love Yoon Ha Lee´s work.
Fantastic imagination and no handholding, perfect for me, but click on the “The Battle of Candle Arc,” link to see if it suits your taste.
A lot of Yoon Ha Lee´s short stories are available for free on the net, lots of links in the wikipedia article
Conservation of Shadows is a collection of some of his great short stories well worth reading.

As good as Use of Weapons ? Yes I think so but the writing and worldbuilding is very different.

I didn't find the description of the book to be appealing, especially with the tedious-sounding prose and tech-heavy invented words. Too often, authors do worldbuilding only to have those worlds peopled with dull cardboard characters.

I can put up with the obtuse bits by Iain M. Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson because I know I'll get to mindblowing prose after some hard slogging. Maybe I'll check out the author's short stories first before reading his novels.

As Bascule the Teller would say about Lee: "Hez the regyoolar gi we can idennify wif."

I read a few of the author's short stories and... Meh. I'm not a fan of military SF if it rambles on and on about tactics and unexplained tech, and the heptarchate fictional universe seems to be full of just that. Not my cup of tea.

That said, I loved Ancillary Sword for its weirdness and Cordwainer Smith's work for its mind bending mix of Eastern and Western myths projected into a strange future. Vonda McIntyre also has some good stuff, especially her two short stories on male-female and female-male symbionts told from two opposing perspectives - seriously disturbing stuff too.

 

[Kommet]

schporto[/url]":26ghm1ea]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

Hell, I felt like I needed a This Review-English Dictionary.

 

[Cartographic]

unequivocal[/url]":1hetcwp7]

schporto[/url]":1hetcwp7]I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

I actually prefer many books that don't do this. I thought Ancillary Justice was really fun b/c there was so little context to understanding the world. Just the author's use of "she" as a universal pronoun was startling and insightful for me. Let alone trying to figure out what an ancillary was. The second book in the series didn't offer nearly this level of new material - just building a story in an already well defined world and I lost interest in the series..

I'm right there with you, and I thought Ancillary Justice was an excellent read, and you are precisely right about the follow ups being significantly less interesting.

But then, one of my favorite authors is Gene Wolfe. I always feel a bit guilty about that, because even if he has been called the greatest living American fiction writer in any genre (something with which I tend to agree) he's really, really %^*]#% difficult to read. His books require you to pay an enormous amount of attention to every single line in order to figure it out. My wife introduced me to the Book of the New Sun by saying "I need you to read this, I can't tell if it's good." 50 pages in I was hooked - but it takes getting to book 3 of 4 to figure it what is going on. (FWIW, I usually recommend The Wizard Knight, which is fantasy and includes some of the most disturbing imagery concerning giants you will ever encounter, but is far more "straight ahead" adventure than most of Wolfe's books.)

For me, it all boils down to world building, and authors that jump straight in and don't hold your hand with tedious prose expositions build denser, more complex, and more rewarding works. Works that you can revisit again and again and always discover new things that you missed the first time. Dense, sparse prose leads to dense, complex fictional worlds.

If you like this style of writing, give China Mieville a try. Perdido Street Station is one of the best fantasy works written in the past twenty years, and Embassy Town is a fascinating hard sci-fi look at what cohabitation with a truly alien race might mean (as well as a great book about alien linguistics and the relationship between reality and language).

I will definitely be buying this, tonight, and starting it, tonight. Ars tipped me off to Ancillery Justice and I loved it. Keep the awesome book reviews and great taste in sci-fi coming please!

Edit: iPhone, it's sci-fi, not sci-do

 

[Dac]

Bought the book, and it's terrific. Very much reminiscent of Ann Leckie's _Justice_ novels, with some of the gore from Neal Asher's excellent books (Prador et al). I am about 25% through and it's good enough to keep me away from finishing Neal Asher's _War Factory_ ...

 

[chanman819]

Bought the book, loved it. The setting however, reminded me more than a bit of Warhammer 40k.

Spoiler

The effect the calendrical system has on reality is reminiscent of the warp. The Hexarch/Heptarch maps fairly cleanly are the Imperium of Man, and the heretics are well... heretics.

The Kel are the Imperial Guard/Navy with attrition to match.
The Shuos are the Officio Assassinorum and Inquisition
The Nirai are the Adeptus Mechanicus
The Rahal and Vidona are the Ecclesiarchy (Adeptus Ministorum) - the Rahal setting doctrine and the Vidona being the Adeptus Soritas/Arbites

The Andan seem to be the nobility and diplomats/merchants, although their role is the least explained in the book.

The Liozh don't really have a clean parallel being described as ethicists and philosophers - but it's not surprising they would end up in the situation they did

 

[jbrisbin]

It is a common fallacy to conflate numerology with mathematics. 'taint so.

Kindly put, it is numeric theology, bluntly it is superstition for the innumerate wrapped in a cloak certainty.

Aside from that the book is not bad.

 

[Dac]

jbrisbin[/url]":9ffogq99]It is a common fallacy to conflate numerology with mathematics. 'taint so.

Kindly put, it is numeric theology, bluntly it is superstition for the innumerate wrapped in a cloak certainty.

Aside from that the book is not bad.

It isn't just numbers though, thats the calendrical stuff; the exotic weapons depend on mathematical formulas, with their technology depending upon exotic effects. It's another form of magic; kinda like Peter F. Hamilton's Void series 'dreamers' universe, where magic is real, and technology doesn't fare so well.

 

[epapsiou]

I don't see any math in this. I have read the book and yes you need to be good in Math in this fictional world to adapt to "heretical calendar" affects but that is about it.
It is an OK book which I bought on recommendation of Ars. This was the first (and probably last) time my book reading will be influenced by Ms Khaw.

 

[Dac]

epapsiou[/url]":czqaia5u]I don't see any math in this. I have read the book and yes you need to be good in Math in this fictional world to adapt to "heretical calendar" affects but that is about it.
It is an OK book which I bought on recommendation of Ars. This was the first (and probably last) time my book reading will be influenced by Ms Khaw.

It was more along the lines of 'we have this belief system, and if we get enough people to use it, we get all these fancy technology-indistinguishable-from-magic side effects, most of which are Quite Good, as long as you enjoy being forced to do distasteful stuff with monotonous regularity.

Can't say more without spoiling the book; I found it very entertaining, with the curlicues and whorls of non-understanding mixed in with the normal thrust and parry of interpersonal politics. Very much reminiscent of Ann Leckie's 'universe', where style trumps substance, and unswaying loyalty -literally- gets you killed, all grist for the mill of that society (or group of societies).

Really it comes down to 'here's a bunch of people controlled by the state, and here's what happens when some people decide to act differently'. Complaining that there wasn't enough formulae or actual numbers in the Calendrical Heresies, is akin to wanting to see the inner workings of FTL spaceships, understand how Ansibles work, or getting to play with actual matter-transmitters. It's a story, full of blood and thunder.

 

[epapsiou]

Dac[/url]":jbdkdxx0]

epapsiou[/url]":jbdkdxx0]I don't see any math in this. I have read the book and yes you need to be good in Math in this fictional world to adapt to "heretical calendar" affects but that is about it.
It is an OK book which I bought on recommendation of Ars. This was the first (and probably last) time my book reading will be influenced by Ms Khaw.

It was more along the lines of 'we have this belief system, and if we get enough people to use it, we get all these fancy technology-indistinguishable-from-magic side effects, most of which are Quite Good, as long as you enjoy being forced to do distasteful stuff with monotonous regularity.

Can't say more without spoiling the book; I found it very entertaining, with the curlicues and whorls of non-understanding mixed in with the normal thrust and parry of interpersonal politics. Very much reminiscent of Ann Leckie's 'universe', where style trumps substance, and unswaying loyalty -literally- gets you killed, all grist for the mill of that society (or group of societies).

Really it comes down to 'here's a bunch of people controlled by the state, and here's what happens when some people decide to act differently'. Complaining that there wasn't enough formulae or actual numbers in the Calendrical Heresies, is akin to wanting to see the inner workings of FTL spaceships, understand how Ansibles work, or getting to play with actual matter-transmitters. It's a story, full of blood and thunder.

Perhaps I was not clear. Won't be the first time.
My complain was that the article's title "
Ninefox Gambit is military science fiction for people who love mathematics" misled me to believe that this book has something to do with Maths. It has nothing. You can replace a few mathematical terms used in this book with other nonsensical words that this book is rife with and nothing would change. I was expecting this to be more like say Asimov's Robot series or Ringworld where new concepts are introduced and world building is based on these concepts. In this case I assumed the concepts would be mathematical in nature as opposed to say robotics (3 laws).
This is just a "military science fiction" and not a good one at that.
Ender's Game is far superior in this Genre.
This is not Yoon Ha Lee's fault but that of the reviewer.

 

[Dac]

epapsiou[/url]":2poik0h9]
This is just a "military science fiction" and not a good one at that.
Ender's Game is far superior in this Genre.
This is not Yoon Ha Lee's fault but that of the reviewer.

I could argue the points, but that would just be me spouting my likes/dislikes; I've read quite a lot of SF in the last 45 years of reading, and my tastes have changed, as indeed, SF has changed.

There are some books which are timeless. Olaf Stapledon's works from the 1930s are just as epic as Asimov's Foundation series; Herbert's Dune is a masterpiece, and has hardly any 'hard' SF in it. The Space Opera sub-genre of SF is where I concentrate my reading dollar, so I'm comfortable with Iain M. Banks, Neal Asher, Larry Niven etc, and not so enamoured of very popular authors such as Ray Bradbury or John Whyndham.

Which is a roundabout way of saying 'diff'rent strokes'.

Ninefox Gambit is Space Opera. It has intrinsic Space Opera themes, pulled together in an off-beat universe, where political ideals affect reality itself, and humans are forced into belief systems in order to 'power' their technology, increasing the ability of the power-wielders to further bend society to their will. It's a newish mechanic, one that utterly depends upon hand-waving and metaphor, since 'real' Caldendrical Technology doesn't exist in our universe (or does it?).

Similar hand-waving goes on in most author's universes. Cities in Flight had spin drives, The Culture universe has upper and lower hyperspace, used to power magically FTL drives at hundreds of thousands times the 'speed of light'. Alastair Reynolds uses mathematics to suck energy from localised parts of the universe and decrease entropy, using that as a form of space drive. These concepts are thought up, and hand-waved into existence.

Arguing 'spin drives are rubbish' is just as silly, when referring to a novel, as stating that _Moby Dick_ didn't have enough (or any) Jonah's in the story ...

You are wholly entitled to your opinion, and it's clear that this book didn't 'do it' for you. Fair call, you didn't get what you expected.

Ninefox Gambit does have values that aren't lost in the hand-waving and crazed language of 93 minute hours and 6 day weeks ... They are just props that the story is written against, and they work just fine as long as you don't try to peer into the workings too deeply. The Ars reviewer put me onto this book (I hadn't heard of the book or the author), and I'm very pleased that they did so.

There are a lot of SF books out there. Some of them are fantasticly good. Others are sublime in ways that I can't appreciate (anything by Doris Lessing, for example), and appreciated by other readers in ways that I can't imagine. I accept this, because that's the way of novels -- they aren't all the same style, something to be thankful for, rather than railing for 'more sameness'.

I should stress that I'm fleshing out my opinion here, and not necessarily booing your opinion; rather stating that there are other styles, and they all have their highlights and pitfalls.

 

[bonaparte]

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: allies herself with an unsavoury character. In this case, it's Jedao, an undead tactician who just so happens to be a mass murderer.

This is pretty inaccurate. Cheris starts out as an infantry captain, Jedao is the disgraced general (because of the mass murder).

 

[Azethoth666]

I sometimes wonder if some books should have a 5-10 page 'rules' intro. A basic description of how things work in this world/universe. Not huge long description. But things like "warp occurs by linking two points in space. Travel is instantaneous." vs "warp occurs by using a warp bubble that allows travel at multiples of the speed of light". That would allow for "calendrical sword" to be explained, without breaking the story. Kinda like including a map in a fantasy novel.

I goddamn hate books that waste pages on that.

Far better to imagine and pick up from context.

In fact, in my experience most explainer books are inferior while most that do not are superior. But this is less than anecdote, and likely heavy observer bias.