Revenant Gun

I gave Ninefox Gambit five stars, which means by rights I should be giving Revenant Gun six or seven. This book was an absolute delight to read, and I'm at something of a loss as to how to review it without just gushing. All the stuff I loved about the two books that came before it is still there, but it ramps up some of the more fun elements - cute robots! A servitor is one of the main perspective characters! We have a teenage version of Jedao feeling completely out of his depth! Even characters who are opposed to each other are awesome and loveable and worth rooting for! We finally learn about voidmoths, which I guess hovers sort of between "fun" and "horrifying in a dystopian way", but either way: awesome!

I did a lot of complaining about the sociopathic villain trope embodied in Nirai Kujen in the earlier books, and... I feel a lot better about it now. The language surrounding it is not optimal, but in Revenant Gun we learn Kujen's history and, critically, how he came to be the way he is - and it's both chilling and tragic, because (given the available in-universe technology and all that) it's thoroughly realistic and has an all-too human origin. At the same time, his evil (a word I do not like to use very much, but I am comfortable applying it to him) is not at all downplayed. Nirai Kujen is an absolutely horrible person, in a way that many people might become if they had the chance, and for entirely understandable - if not necessarily sympathetic - reasons. It also helps that he has a foil in Shuos Mikodez, who has the same sort of language used around him and is purportedly without scruples, but throughout all of it remains, fundamentally, not evil. It's a low bar to cross, especially in comparison to Kujen, but Mikodez manages it admirably.

So I feel better about that, and there's a lot of fun in here, but there's a lot of depth too; themes of humanity and autonomy and rights (and who deserves them) continue, and the series ends with a focus on healing and reparations, and it's all just very satisfying. Love this book, love this series, and am deeply glad that I read it.

Selling points: queer cast; non-white cast; magic space battles; cute robots; teenage Jedao feeling out of his depth; excellent worldbuilding; weird alien stuff from an excellent angle.

Warnings: suicidal ideation; also something very complicated that amounts to a rape warning.

"You’re not supposed to spend on frivolous shit, but what good is life without some frivolous shit?"

Here we are, the end of a trilogy I greatly enjoyed. It's a testament to how intriguing I found the series that I finished all three books within a span of six months, because I never read series books back-to-back. This was a wild ride, and on the other side I'm still not sure I could explain some of the concepts going on, but I still really enjoyed it.

I won't go into story details, because basically anything I can say about the plot would be spoilers for this book and the series as a whole. Suffice it to say that things get a bit weird(er?), there's new POVs introduced for this book, and some are more endearing than others. If Hemiola could get her own spinoff series, I'd be super happy, thanks. I'm slightly disappointed in the ending, but I guess I can see how things wrapped up.

I do feel like, as tight and clean as the second book felt in terms of plot and progression, this third book felt like a bit of a regression. The story is a bit fragmented for large chunks of the book, and it's hard to see initially how things are supposed to fit. The ending felt a bit rushed and blended together to get everything to work, which felt a bit different than the endings of the other two books.

I still would recommend this series to anyone willing to take on a bit of a challenge in terms of sci-fi terminology and concepts. Jedao is a delight and a treasure.

7/10


These characters are amazing. What they managed to do with Jedao on this one not only was super clever, it worked really well. The world-building's fantastic as always though I did not find the new addition to be as inspirational. Gate-space is no Calendar. Moths are no Hafn geese. Good book, good series. But fuck, allow me to lament, we never return to the heights of Book 1 Chapter1. Kel Infantry shit.

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I think the series could have used a few world-upending changes. Change of scenery at least. Read the books back to back and it feels like a sci-fi show from 90ies. Shot on the same high-end but repetitive set. Describe to me the Ashawk tapestries once again.

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All of my criticisms feel unfair to me. I really liked and enjoyed the book. I really liked how it turned out. I really like the intimate, intrigue, political happenings. I really do. But I suppose I was hoping for something grander in scale. More dramatic.

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Did I say how great the cast is? The new additions in book three are just as excellent. Maybe too early too say but I have a feeling they'll all be very memorable.

I liked the first two books for plunging me into a very imaginative world of calendrical warfare and exotic effects. Impossibly, the third books still keeps revealing fantastic new information. This time it's about Moths, the spaceships of this world.

Also any questions we had about the nature and origin of Kujen and the Heptarchate / Hexarchate are nicely answered.

A way this book is even better than the first two is the symmetry of the plot. We have Jedao fighting Jedao.

I read it two months ago, so I don't remember a lot of detail, but let me share two passages I highlighted:

There’s an algorithm for fast factorization. The trick is, it relies on exotic effects—and those effects require a nonstandard calendar.

She remembered overseeing the servitors changing his diapers.