I am sad I read this a month too late to include it in my Hugo noms. My bad. It was out there for over half a year and I loved [b: Ninefox Gambit|26118426|Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire #1)|Yoon Ha Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1446557461s/26118426.jpg|46065520].

So. My recommendation: Read. This. Series. The math based calendar magic, the fascinating social structure of the Empire with its factions (Kel, Vidona, Andan, Shuos, Nirai and Rahal), the characters and the intricate plot make for a fast-paced read.

It took me book 1 to figure out the High Calendar and the faction system but knowing this--and I struggled with it in book 1--made this one easier to understand and so I could focus more on the characters and plot.

There is only one thing I dislike, due to understandable reasons (see end of book 1), we lose Cheris as a POV character and Jedao is not replacing her either.

Quick plot (for me to re-read instead of re-reading before next book):
At the end of book one, Jedao's ship is destroyed by a so-called Carrion bomb and Cheris barely survives while Jedao is "shattered" into pieces which somehow Cheris ingests.

Book 2 starts with Cheris arriving at General Khiruev's swarm posing as a "special envoy" from the Kel. Since everyone assumed she is dead, there is no general warning out about her and she is received on Khiruev's flag ship the "Hierarchy of Feasts" where she reveals that she is Jedao and pulls rank on everyone thanks for formation instinct.

Brazen one of Khiruev's staff resists Jedao and is revealed to be a crash-hawk and thus kicked out of the swarm along with all other non-Kel. Jedao takes over the swarm. Khiruev--despite formation instinct--tries to assassinate Jedao but instead kills two of her own officers.

Brazen becomes a new POV character who is imprisoned for being a crash-hawk. The first half of his story-arc he spends as prisoner of a variety of people. First the Nirai, then the Shuos and finally the Kel. The moment Jedao kicked him off the flagship his fate was sealed. But he finally manages to get his information on Jedao to Kel Command.

Khiruev is another major POV. She struggles to accept Jedao's command at first but he seems much more reasonable than she expected even following through on her original mission fighting an incursion by the Hafn who have been attacking the empire with strange new exotics even inside the empire's terrain which they should not have been able to. While Jedao is slowly gaining Khiruev's loyalty, he is also starting a propaganda campaign in the empire to make it more difficult for the factions to go after him.

Hierarch Shuos Mikodez is the third major POV, the only one already known from book 1. But here his role is much larger as it is revealed in more detail how he rules the back-stabbing Shuos through cunning and allies. His younger sister, now brother, Istradez is only one of several doubles he uses to hide behind and his right hand Zehun is infamous in his own right. Together the trio spins a web of intrigue through the Hexarchate that is only rivaled by whatever Jedao is planning. Mikodez is a fun character to read, he seems to take nothing quite as serious as he should and yet is successful being the leader of the most dangerous faction.

Around the same time that Mikodez is trying to contact Jedao, Kel Command finally manages to realize what is going on with Khiruev's swarm and demotes Jedao, taking away his rank in order to break the swarm free of him when they would no longer be compelled to follow him because of formation instinct. But Khiruev invokes an old escape clause that allows a Kel to throw off formation instinct to ignore certain orders--after 100 days she will have to pay with her life. Jedao has convinced her that whatever his plans for the Hexarchate it is worth her life to make the attempt.

There are signs that Jedao is not quite only Jedao and he hasn't taken over Cheris completely. He is hiding his newly acquired skill at math (from Cheris) and he is still interacting a lot with the servitors.

In the campaign against the Hafn he is mostly letting Khiruev command the swarm only rarey interfering and giving out strategic information the others overlooked or didn't grasp.

In the meantime, Brazen has not been executed, instead Kel Command has promoted him to High General--so he outranks Khiruev and Jedao--and sent him on a mission with Andan Tsaya to take out Jedao by Andal enthrallment.

Mikodez is making plans of his own while Kujen's new immortality device will soon make all the Hexarch's immortal. As it turns out not all the Hexarch's want to be immortal. Neither Mikodez nor Kel Command. By the time this becomes clear Mikodez has finally figured out what Jedao/Cheris plan really is. Cheris is still Cheris, Jedao is dead, but she has his memories. And with her math skills and his knowledge of the Hexarchate she has devised a plan to create a so-called calendrical spike that will reset the High Calendar and cause one major change: all the faction calendrical abilities (most notably the Andan enthrallment and the Kel Formation Instinct) will from then on only work on those who submit to them voluntarily, making both effectively useless. But first she must succeed.

Brazen and Tsaya have arrived on the Hierarchy of Feasts and ... because Cheris is not Jedao the enthrallment fails. Because the ability only works against people of a lower social standing than the Andan. And Tsaya is a cast-out. Jedao would have been of lower standing than her. But Cheris is not. So Tsaya is taken to a cell while Jedao begins to convince Brazen of the necessity of his plans/ambitions by letting Brazen take over the swarm.

The intricate finale takes up about the final fifth of the book.

With feints from Mikodez, a finally convinced Brazen, Cheris' brilliant math and the servitors, they manage to pull through.

Mikodez assassinates the Niarai (not Kujen though), Andan and Rahal Hexarchs... thanks to a suicide attack executed by Istradez. At the same time--thanks to some interference from Mikodez--the servitors and Cheris take out Kel Command at their hidden Aerie. Apparently, this is enough to change the High Calendar. The Hafn had been chased from the empire through battles won a little earlier and Mikodez took out several ship-yards of the empire to prevent... - it is not quite clear to me why he did that, I think he wanted to prevent someone in the factions from gaining the ships for a brutal shut-down of the coming revolution?

The Hexarchate is in upheaval.