The third Nicefox Gambit book is out — the series is actually called Machineries of Empire, but I like Nicefox Gambit too much to resist using it. So before I get into this book, Revenant Gun, here’s a quick, spoilery recap of the story in Nicefox and Raven Stratagem. A rebellious foot soldier has the ghost of a dead traitor general installed in her head. The hexarchate — the ruling powers — intend for the general, Jedao, and the soldier, Cheris, to win a particularly challenging battle for them — they’ve used Jedao’s ghost in the past this way, to excellent effect. When Cheris and Jedao succeed, the hexarchate attempt to have them killed. Instead of dying, they meld into one person and topple the hexarchate entirely.
Revenant Gun picks up nine years after the end of Raven Stratagem, as the new government Cheris-and-Jedao founded tries to fight off efforts by the old hexarchate to regain their former power. Most notably, the ruthless and inventive Hexarch Kujen has resurfaced, and he has woken up a younger (less rebellious — he hopes) version of Jedao’s ghost to help him. Cheris-and-Jedao has disappeared. As it turns out, she/he/they are on a mission to assassinate Kujen (who we can all agree deserves it).
Phew. That was a lot of words to say. If you’re able, I would advise reading all three of these books one after another. They contain a lot of names and concepts and weirdness, and it took me a little while to get back in the swing of things. (Big surprise, I know.)
The verdict? Revenant Gun is an exciting, suspenseful conclusion to the series. Yoon Ha Lee introduces a potentially serious complication in the form of a second Jedao awakened and embodied by Kujen to win wars to sustain the existing calendar. (There’s a very funny — to me — running gag about a third Jedao, a kitten owned by a minor character.) This means, of course, two Jedao-ish characters working against each other, which could have been too much of a muchness but in fact works out to heighten the pitch of both the emotions and the suspense.
I mention the introduction of a second Jedao as a kind of synecdoche for Yoon Ha Lee’s relentless talent for inventive complication. It would have been easy (for me) for Revenant Gun to operate with the players already on the board, building to a climactic battle and a success for Cheris’s new calendar. Instead Lee continues to throw new ideas and complexities at the reader and the characters right up to the very end, requiring a constant re-sifting-through of loyalties and ideology. The result is a distinct lack of clear villainy or clear heroism. Everyone here is trying to correct wrongs they’ve perceived in the past, with the inevitable result of introducing shiny new wrongs that new people will have to launch assaults against.
Obviously, I love this series. It continues not to be for the faint of heart, and readers will probably benefit (I did) by not worrying too too much about sorting through and perfectly understanding each and every detail. But it’s superb and weird and strange and absolutely worth the effort you’ll invest.