#Raven Stratagem Spoilers

[phagodyke]

ok rly wasn't expecting yoon ha lee to go this hard on the incest in machineries of empire but ykw. good for him. a lesser author would be too afraid to make their scifi societal worldbuilding differ too much from the standards of ours...

[the-ghost-of-jason-todd]

I WANT CHERIS BACK SO BAD

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Raven Stratagem + Revenant Gun

books 2 & 3 in a military-political sci-fi trilogy

space empire setting where reality & technology relies on an enforced cultural belief and calendar system

the ghost general taken over Cheris’ body and gone rogue, the rest of the hexarcate is trying to assassinate them while they try to change the oppressive systems of the hexarchate

I don’t know how else to explain things in here without spoilers (if I even could explain..)

[sock-to-the-third]

Raven Stratagem

By Yoon Ha Lee

Awesome book. There’s a ton of spoilers if I were to talk about it but let’s leave it at this.

Lots more secrets to uncover about jedao

Mikodez has ton of cool moments + development of his inner circle

Zehun uses they/them pronouns which I somehow didn’t notice

Brezan and Khiruev have awesome character arca

More servitor parts

Honestly, I like how much characters other than Jedao got arca. Also just the overall development of the world and how the hexarchs operate in this delightfully monsterous way.

I’m not usually the type to reread anything but I hope to come back to Raven Stratagem.

Prev: Ninefox Gambit

Sequel: Revenant Gun

[a-green-onion]

...every single character description in the Machineries of Empire series sounds like that "diversity win!" meme

diversity win! the mass murderer kept alive for centuries as a living weapon who just bombed your planet is a bi person of color with dyscalculia.

diversity win! the general who ordered you into a near-suicide mission then left you to die when you didn't follow orders instantly and to the letter is a lesbian Woman In STEM from a marginalized ethnic group.

diversity win! the immortal scientist brainwashing you so he can use your body as raw material for experimentation is a gay person of color.

diversity win! the military plant running your ostensibly-democratic puppet government is a trans man of color in a t4t relationship.

there's three books and a short story collection; I could do this all day.

[knivesareourwalls]

“Sir,” Khiruev said unsteadily, “do you require a refresher course in firearms safety?” ... ”There you have it,” Jedao said. He dragged a chair over, sat, and put his chin in his hands with his elbows on the chair’s back. “You’re free.”

Some sketches from Raven Stratagem

[incorrecthexarchatequotes]

Kujen: I have created a stable undead Kel general

High General Kel Shiang: You fucked up a perfectly good Shuos, is what you did. Look at him. He’s got anxiety.

[venndaai]

a fun (painful) raven stratagem parallel:

Chapter 13:

“Sir, I ought to warn you. I said I’d hold the swarm for you, and I will, but I’ll only be useful to you for so long.”

Chapter 26:

Istradez drew a shuddering breath. “I recognize that my usefulness to you is nearing its end,” he said. “I beg for one last—”

[everknowing]

“Oh, for the love of stars above. Now that Jedao’s running around loose, send him a courier with a shiny gun prototype or a nice bottle of whiskey and your apologies. It’ll make you both feel better. He might even forgive you for sticking him in the black craddle. The two of you can team up and conquer the galaxy.”

“Someday I’ll take you up on that,” Kujen said. “But not just yet.”

[dreamsatdusk]

OH HEY

So in looking up quotes in Raven Stratagem for an earlier post....

...I reviewed where Cheris’s mother is thinking of all the old stories she had not told her daughter.  One of them:

The story of the raven general who sacrificed a thousand thousand of his soldiers to build a spirit-bridge of birds to assault the heavens.

One could regard Cheris+Jedao as a raven general.  A thousand thousand = a million.  The text says “Over one million people died at Hellspin Fortress.”  And what was Hellspin Fortress, essentially?  A sacrifice so that Jedao could become a “spirit” (ghost) in the hopes that it would allow him to eventually “assault the heavens” (heparchate/hexarchate).

We also have the deaths of the Mwennin in Raven Stratagem, at least some of whom were likely from Cheris’s home, the City of Ravens Feasting.  Another consequence of the fight against the hexarchate.

[phagodyke]

raven stratagem spoilers warning !!

CHAPTER 21 KHIRUEV WONDERING WHERE JEDAO GOT THE MATH FROM WITHOUT ANY NIRAI...... YEAHHHHHH CHERIS IS STILL IN THERE I KNEW ITTTT WE'RE SO FUCKING BACK BABY!!!! I bet he's been playing up his dyscalculia this whole time so no one suspected she wasn't dead but they mustve fully fused into a single entity I knewwwww ittttt yessss (I know it could just be he was consulting servitors but I refuse to believe it. also the constant servitor nods earlier were basically proof cherisjedao are the same person or like. maybe they can switch. I KNEW HE WAS LYING TO MIKODEZ.....his formation instinct tells are only still there bc of her...... sickos dot jpeg!!!!)

[whispersmith]

Finished Raven Stratagem! Now I can read the spoiler posts. That was ... a little anticlimactic tbh imo. For such a world-shaking event, we didn't see the ramifications on my favorite characters, and the prose fell a little flat. But there will be more, and I still love Cheris-Jedao and Khiruev and am maybe coming around to Brezan. Khiruev learns the servitor language! Mikodez is still the worst. I kept thinking about how "crashhawk" is an incredible in-universe pun and I hope YHL giggled about it at least a little. So much emphasis on jokes in the hexarcate - there's probably something to be said there about humor releasing tension that a society is otherwise unable to articulate.

[tirkdi]

5 sentence fic meme: (1) Grisha / Alarkling - Puzzle. (2) Machineries of Empire / Jedao - Innocence.

Jedao enjoyed the jeng-zai, even if something about being undead seemed to affect his ability to make profitable wagers. He could have argued that playing against a revenant made it harder since there was no body language to read, but Kujen had the same disadvantage and still won every time. At the end of Jedao’s sixteenth consecutive loss (four lucky unlucky fours, never safe to assume a Nirai wasn’t watching the numbers) Kujen indicated he’d make some adjustments and see if he couldn’t improve Jedao’s gambling with cards before he had to do it with moths – and, as an afterthought, Kel lives.

Jedao couldn’t do anything about his signifier appearing as Ninefox Crowned with Eyes, even if it suggested to Kujen that more was happening in undeath than even a psych surgeon of his caliber could anticipate; the general just had to avoid slipping up, to make sure he played his cards exactly right.

Jedao gave a cheerful revenant-smile to himself as he began their seventeenth game by making another deliberately terrible wager.

[sock-to-the-third]

Ninefox Gambit

By Yoon Ha Lee

I have to admit, I was a bit cold on entry. I originally found this book when searching DID stories on Reddit. So I was expecting something that was a bit more emotionally grounded?? Not sure what I was looking for honestly.

Man, I was in for a surprise!

1. The society is based on number systems related to time

2. Heresy connected to going against this

3. Scifi (magical) math based weapons absolutely wrecking people’s shit.

I cannot begin to say all the things I love about this book. I’m only in Precalc right now but dude, this book makes me really want to incorporate math into my writing at some point.

As for the DID angle, spoilers!

Future me may remembers this, may not. The way they handle Jedao and Cheris and their later true body sharing and how the memories incorporate… I’m not sure how much in common it has with DID but I find the story very compelling.

I especially like how they hold back revealing any of Jedao’s backstory until plot demanded it. Jedao has a very fucked up life, like, the Heptarch really fucked him up. Fuck khaiz, all screw her.

So like only way he was sharing any of this was magical science intervention and Cheris, the fucking trooper, fucking pulled through.

Definitely want to read more of Yoon Ha Lee’s work. Fucking love this shit. <3

Sequel: Raven Stratagem

[simaethae]

raven stratagem spoilers

very spoilery semi-coherent reactions!

jedao is such a MESS. god. i love how mikodez’ perspective made it immediately apparent what a disaster jedao is, in ways which make complete sense: all tactics, no strategy! yep. there’s the guy who thought killing all his troops and getting himself trapped in the black cradle was a Good Plan! i mean, yes, hypercompetent and terrifying? but a disaster!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED INSIDE CHERIS’ HEAD. that scene where she/jedao chirpily pretends not to have the first idea what a mwennin is or where one might be found to the point of fooling the shuos hexarch - what has HAPPENED to her. cheris can’t act! i am dying for her pov, how much of her has drowned in jedao, what is the balance between cheris eating jedao’s abilities and jedao wearing cheris as a portable calculator, talk about codependence :(((

the servitors are such good sweet robots. i love them. i can’t wait for mikodez to start recruiting them. mikodez, honey, did you not already have half a dozen plans to take down the rest of the hexarchate, because if you say no i won’t believe you. (also, sorry, i don’t believe things with istradez were nearly as happy and functional as mikodez would like to pretend to himself, which is already “not very”.)

there was a bit of middle-novel syndrome imo. a lot of setup for future events! andan tseya is a chekov’s gun if i ever saw one, i somehow doubt the high-level andan are entirely reliant on brute enthrallment to function.

how does the black cradle work anyway?? i am NOT REASSURED by kujen’s pov and his meditations on psych surgery, i have the awful feeling he could do more than he’s told anyone else. nasty speculation: revenant gun involves nirai kujen reloading jedao from backups with the tactics and the formation instinct, and pointing him at cheris.

wasn’t quite sold on the hexarchs’ desperate conspiracy towards immortality, which is odd because i don’t normally need much convincing that dying is bad and to be avoided? i quite see that from the outside, right, putting these fuckups permanently in charge of this stretch of the universe would be a nightmare, but i didn’t get the sense from the hexarchs that they wanted immortality enough to make the choices they do. people definitely do sometimes have things they want more than they want to live forever. like, i’m sure dying suddenly and leaving her children forever caught in horrible unresolved conflicted grief would be on andan shendal yeng’s list of ambitions, if she thought about it properly.

also, i want more about kel command! what’s it like having your military run by hivemind, what’s it like being part of a hivemind, we’ve yet to have a composite pov and i want to find out.

[logarithmicpanda]

I remember the first time I read it, I had missed the clues and i was like "hell yeah"

Ashdkdjhfls first the math and now Cheris is BACK

I literally cheered when her name was back on the page; I missed her