Ninefox Gambit, first impressions mostly without spoilers

[jack]

This has so much I love.

An interesting space empire, full of detailed calendrical minutae, customs, etc, etc.

A mathematically gifted protagonist struggling to serve loyally as a minor officer in the infantry.

A legendary rogueish maybe-monster.

The empire is built on basically mathematically-based magic, following particular social codes (both on an "infantry formation scale" and a "society as a whole" scale) allows various exotic technologies to work that wouldn't otherwise, including more powerful weapons and other tech that enables the empire to function at all.

I had some reservations too, which may contain spoilers, so will be moved into a follow-up post. Please make any comments which contain spoilers on that post too.

Comments

[kaberett]

yhlee recently made a long post reflecting on Ninefox Gambit, which may be of interest to you!

[jack]

Oh thank you, that's fascinating. Often my perspective on a novel totally shifts when I read something by the author and am suddenly massively sympathetic to it, even if my overall impressions of pros and cons is mostly the same.

[kaberett]

Really really glad it's interesting! I overall loved the novel (and still need to complete my reread of it to pick up all the glorious bits of detail I know I missed on first pass), and will be absolutely delighted to read your further thoughts on the topic. :-)

[hilarita]

I recently finished this, and also really enjoyed it. I'll try to stick some longer form thoughts on my blog, but basically it was strange in a good way.