SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Revenant Gun (Machineries of Empire #3) by Yoon Ha Lee https://t.co/m4z07KAqYp Short Review: 9 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16 (@garik16) June 26, 2018
Short Review (cont): The conclusion to the trilogy began in Ninefox Gambit, Revenant Gun features the final confrontation in this world where technology is affected by the calendars, rituals, and tortures observed by society as our heroes fight for a better galaxy. Stunning (2/3)— garik16 (@garik16) June 26, 2018
Revenant Gun is the third and final book in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy, which began with 2016's Ninefox Gambit and continued with last year's Raven Stratagem (Review Here). I'd nominated both of the prior books in the series for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and both did in fact get nominated (Ninefox Gambit also picked up a Nebula Nom), so this has been one of my most highly anticipated books in quite a while. So it shouldn't surprise anyone it too me less than 24 hours to finish this book, and I've reread parts of it multiple times already.
As the finale of the trilogy, Revenant Gun, is mostly excellent - I'd probably place it on par with Ninefox Gambit but behind Raven Stratagem - and does a great job wrapping up the major plot threads of the trilogy (while leaving open some more for future potential work in this world). As you might imagine, you cannot start the trilogy with this book (you could've in theory started with Raven Stratagem, but I would not have recommended it).
More after the jump, Spoilers for the first two books to some extent are inevitable:
When Shuos Jedao wakes up in a strange place, he finds himself completely disoriented. As far as he can remember, he was simply a teenage cadet in Shuos Academy, with his career completely ahead of him. But even those memories seem spotty and full of holes - and a man claiming to be the Nirai Hexarch Kujen informs Jedao that Jedao is to be the General in charge of a swarm of Kel, with the goal of reconquering the Hexarchate, which has fallen to pieces in the last few years. Moreover, though he can remember none of it, the Kel forces seem to hate Jedao for an atrocity he committed that he no longer remembers, remaining loyal only due to special Kel conditioning.
But worst of all is the fact that Jedao can't help but noticing that Kujen isn't telling him everything....and might just be dangerously insane in his own right.
Meanwhile, forces in the Galaxy have become alert to Jedao's swarm's existence, and are mobilizing to destroy him and Kujen. In the midst of all this, a Servitor named Hemiola finds itself drawn into the conflict and discovering the truth behind Kujen's past and present. What were and are Kujen's objectives? And can he be stopped at all?
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Revenant Gun takes place ten years after Raven Stratagem (which took place a few months after Ninefox Gambit), and features the final confrontation between basically everyone in this universe and the trilogy's main antagonist, Nirai Kujen. Gonna admit, after reading the first two books, I pictured in my head the final confrontation going in a number of ways, but none of those ways really came close to what actually occurs in this book. And in the end, that's a good thing, as Lee continues to surprise in stunning ways in this book.
Perhaps the most incredible thing Lee is able to accomplish in this book is to reveal the background of Kujen, who through two books mostly appeared to be a maniacal sociopath, obsessed only with his own immortality, math, and a superiority complex a mile wide (although a reread of his appearances in the prior two books do show that hints of a deeper background exist in those books under the surface). Here, as both Hemiola and the new version of Jedao (hereinafter referred to as "Jedao2" for the rest of this review for clarity) and Cheris, to a much lesser extent, struggle to figure out who Kujen is and what he wants, they discover what exactly lies behind Kujen's mindset and what he's become. And appropriately for this book, it is rather tragic (to say more would be a spoiler) and yet it is not such that the book ever attempts to exonerate Kujen for his choices, any more than it tries to exonerate the original Jedao. This book understands that Kujen can both be a tragic figure and a monster who must be destroyed at the same time, and is all the better for it.
Then there's what the book does with Jedao2, a truly tragic figure in his own right, as a version of Jedao who did not actually in any way commit the atrocities his predecessor did and is thrown into play by Kujen, who manipulates him in utterly horrifying ways. It is not a spoiler to say that Jedao2 isn't the type of person to take this lying down, but this is not the type of book where he is going to triumphantly turn the tables on the main adversary and come out alright, as the reader will discover quite quickly. Another writer might've just turned Jedao2 into another guile hero who realizes his creator is evil and manipulates things to his advantage, but Lee never makes things that simple. Again, Jedao's plot is incredibly surprising, with the conclusion feeling in the end utterly appropriate, if not exactly uplifting. But these have never exactly been light books, so the reader should not feel surprised at this point (Both of the first two books involve an awful lot of innocent deaths caused by the actions of our protagonists, for instance).
Outside of these two main figures, who ground the book - and the trilogy as a whole really - the rest of the characters and worldbuilding are mostly fantastic. The book follows up on a hinted subject in the prior two novels which I wont spoiler, which becomes a major plot element and sets things up for future works in the series (the author has said that a short story collection including such future works is likely to come out next). The book also dives more deeply into the societies of the Servitors - the small AI robots that exist mostly unnoticed around the Hexarchate - which have previously been teased but never fully shown. The most prominent new character, a Servitor named Hemiola, is the clearest example of this, and is a fascinating character in its own right (it reminds me of Martha Wells' Murderbot to an extent), but the book does a great job showing how servitor society works and how different servitors could have different attitudes and personalities and loyalties, and different long term goals (One minor character shown by the book is a human girl being trained by the servitors to enter a school to change the Hexarchate's laws to deal more properly with Servitor customs, and she's absolutely great in her tiny tiny screentime).
The rest of the characters here are mostly great as well. Inesser, the highly spoken of Kel General in the prior books, is a POV character for much of the book's second half, and while she wasn't as tactically brilliant as seemingly portrayed earlier, is still a pretty interesting and different character, as an old and wise charismatic but pragmatic general. Cheris gets her own POV moments in the back half of this book, and continues to be a fascinating hero in her own right. Mikodez has small moments of his own to shine and remains awesome. This is to say nothing of the minor characters who have come to exist in this world throughout the 3 books who also show up here and there, none of whom seem wasted.
Well, one exception - Raven Stratagem protagonist (sort-of) Kel Brezan gets a bunch of POV chapters in this book, and it kind of feels like an incomplete story here. His first few chapters are flashbacks to what happened in the ten year time skip to create the new galactic status quo, with the chapters in question showing events 9 and 8 years prior....and then this background set of flashbacks just stops with Brezan dealing with present events, with the flashbacks not coming into play at all really. The author said on his blog that Brezan's addition wasn't in the original book, and I suspect this is the root cause here, as it doesn't really fit in well with the rest of the story. Brezan's present storyline is fine, but mostly exists to showcase other characters (namely Inesser and Cheris), which seemed like a missed opportunity to me.
Still aside from that one issue, Revenant Gun is an utterly fantastic conclusion to one of my favorite trilogies in years. It may not be the best of the trilogy, but it is a worthy and satisfying ending to the series and I hope people for years to come will take the chance to read this absolutely unique, thrilling, and fascinating scifi story.
Perhaps the most incredible thing Lee is able to accomplish in this book is to reveal the background of Kujen, who through two books mostly appeared to be a maniacal sociopath, obsessed only with his own immortality, math, and a superiority complex a mile wide (although a reread of his appearances in the prior two books do show that hints of a deeper background exist in those books under the surface). Here, as both Hemiola and the new version of Jedao (hereinafter referred to as "Jedao2" for the rest of this review for clarity) and Cheris, to a much lesser extent, struggle to figure out who Kujen is and what he wants, they discover what exactly lies behind Kujen's mindset and what he's become. And appropriately for this book, it is rather tragic (to say more would be a spoiler) and yet it is not such that the book ever attempts to exonerate Kujen for his choices, any more than it tries to exonerate the original Jedao. This book understands that Kujen can both be a tragic figure and a monster who must be destroyed at the same time, and is all the better for it.
Then there's what the book does with Jedao2, a truly tragic figure in his own right, as a version of Jedao who did not actually in any way commit the atrocities his predecessor did and is thrown into play by Kujen, who manipulates him in utterly horrifying ways. It is not a spoiler to say that Jedao2 isn't the type of person to take this lying down, but this is not the type of book where he is going to triumphantly turn the tables on the main adversary and come out alright, as the reader will discover quite quickly. Another writer might've just turned Jedao2 into another guile hero who realizes his creator is evil and manipulates things to his advantage, but Lee never makes things that simple. Again, Jedao's plot is incredibly surprising, with the conclusion feeling in the end utterly appropriate, if not exactly uplifting. But these have never exactly been light books, so the reader should not feel surprised at this point (Both of the first two books involve an awful lot of innocent deaths caused by the actions of our protagonists, for instance).
Outside of these two main figures, who ground the book - and the trilogy as a whole really - the rest of the characters and worldbuilding are mostly fantastic. The book follows up on a hinted subject in the prior two novels which I wont spoiler, which becomes a major plot element and sets things up for future works in the series (the author has said that a short story collection including such future works is likely to come out next). The book also dives more deeply into the societies of the Servitors - the small AI robots that exist mostly unnoticed around the Hexarchate - which have previously been teased but never fully shown. The most prominent new character, a Servitor named Hemiola, is the clearest example of this, and is a fascinating character in its own right (it reminds me of Martha Wells' Murderbot to an extent), but the book does a great job showing how servitor society works and how different servitors could have different attitudes and personalities and loyalties, and different long term goals (One minor character shown by the book is a human girl being trained by the servitors to enter a school to change the Hexarchate's laws to deal more properly with Servitor customs, and she's absolutely great in her tiny tiny screentime).
The rest of the characters here are mostly great as well. Inesser, the highly spoken of Kel General in the prior books, is a POV character for much of the book's second half, and while she wasn't as tactically brilliant as seemingly portrayed earlier, is still a pretty interesting and different character, as an old and wise charismatic but pragmatic general. Cheris gets her own POV moments in the back half of this book, and continues to be a fascinating hero in her own right. Mikodez has small moments of his own to shine and remains awesome. This is to say nothing of the minor characters who have come to exist in this world throughout the 3 books who also show up here and there, none of whom seem wasted.
Well, one exception - Raven Stratagem protagonist (sort-of) Kel Brezan gets a bunch of POV chapters in this book, and it kind of feels like an incomplete story here. His first few chapters are flashbacks to what happened in the ten year time skip to create the new galactic status quo, with the chapters in question showing events 9 and 8 years prior....and then this background set of flashbacks just stops with Brezan dealing with present events, with the flashbacks not coming into play at all really. The author said on his blog that Brezan's addition wasn't in the original book, and I suspect this is the root cause here, as it doesn't really fit in well with the rest of the story. Brezan's present storyline is fine, but mostly exists to showcase other characters (namely Inesser and Cheris), which seemed like a missed opportunity to me.
Still aside from that one issue, Revenant Gun is an utterly fantastic conclusion to one of my favorite trilogies in years. It may not be the best of the trilogy, but it is a worthy and satisfying ending to the series and I hope people for years to come will take the chance to read this absolutely unique, thrilling, and fascinating scifi story.
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