Thank You, Yoon Ha Lee

2019 has been a no-good very-bad year, but the creativity and work of many brilliant people has gotten me through it. As this stupid thankless year draws to a close, I’m writing thank-you notes to some of the people who made things that brought me joy in a dark time.

Dear Yoon Ha Lee,

Thank you for the matchless gift of Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao. They are the quintessential match-up of stern stoicism and absolute ferality, and I fucking live for their uneasy alliance/?friend?ship? (Would we call them friends? I cannot decide. Uneasy allies, anyway!)

I often find it a challenge to read books with a lot of worldbuilding, but I’m so glad that my pal Renay evangelized enough that I picked up Nicefox Gambit a few years back,¹ because it has brought me so much joy. This month, I finally picked up Hexarchate Stories, and while everything in it was terrific, I felt the most exquisite happiness reading “Glass Cannon.” Evidently my heart had been longing for more content in which Cheris finds Jedao maddening and they do murdery adventures together. When my family goes fake-camping (like, in cabins and shit) later this year, I am planning to bring the whole Machineries of Empire series on that trip and do a big reread. I am indescribably excited about that prospect.

Thank you once again for writing these books and creating these characters. I love them so much.

Kind regards,
Jenny