NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR – NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST SERIES – WINNER OF THE 2016 LOCUS AWARD – NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO, NEBULA AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS. When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next. Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Find Ninefox Gambit Yoon Ha Lee in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
6 books in catalog
Complex mathematical calendrical warfare and far-future military tactics define the space opera world of the Machineries of Empire trilogy. Korean-American speculative fiction author Yoon Ha Lee gained wide recognition in science fiction and fantasy with his debut novel Ninefox Gambit, which established a universe grounded in high-concept geometry, political intrigue, and ritualistic technology. His body of work spans adult space opera, young adult mecha fiction such as Moonstorm, middle-grade fantasy, short fiction, tabletop roleplaying games, and comic scripts.
Born in Houston, Texas, in 1979 and educated at Seoul Foreign School, Lee completed a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics at Cornell University, followed by a Master of Arts in mathematics education from Stanford University, and pursued an MFA in media composition and orchestration at ThinkSpace Education. While in college, he sold his first short story, "The Hundredth Question," to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Over his career, his short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Lightspeed, Reactor (formerly Tor.com), and Audubon Magazine, as well as numerous year's best anthologies. Beyond prose, Lee wrote comic scripts for Marvel, including Doom's Division #1-5 and "Epée Is Truth" in The X-Men: The Wedding Special #1, and collaborated on serialized fiction projects including The Vela: The Complete Season 1. His hobbies include game design, visual art, and playful efforts at destroying the reader. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat.
Lee's academic training in mathematics deeply influences his worldbuilding and narrative structures, incorporating high-level concepts of geometry, calendrical systems, and abstract mechanics directly into space opera settings. His fiction regularly investigates themes of institutional authority, military duty, identity, and personal morality within rigid power structures. Beyond high-concept adult science fiction, Lee draws heavily on Korean mythology and folklore for works such as Dragon Pearl and its companion novel Tiger Honor. His work in game design, including tabletop roleplaying systems, reflects a narrative approach centered on strategic systems, intricate tactical dilemmas, and complex moral choices.
The Machineries of Empire
