Raven Stratagem By Yoon Ha Lee

Raven Stratagem 

By Yoon Ha Lee

It's only been 5 months since I reviewed the first book in this series, (I needed a refresher so check for a link at the end) NineFox Gambit. So I feel somewhat justified in not going over the details of Mr. Lee's biography again. I will instead just note that he is a Korean-American author and graduated from Stanford University with an M.A in math education and delights in mining math for story ideas. The Raven Stratagem was published in 2017, by Solaris books, a United Kingdom-based imprint owned by Rebellion Development limited which is itself a British video game developer. Solaris had been founded by BL Publishing which was owned by Games Workshop. Games Workshop is fairly famous for its flagship products the Warhammer fantasy game (now discontinued in favor of Age of Sigmar) and the more well known Warhammer 40k, which is a grim dystopian future where a theocratic regime fights against a hostile universe. Warhammer 40k has a number of novels set in its own universe and that led Games Workshop to briefly experiment with publishing novels that weren't set in their wargames. Solaris was founded in 2007. Rebellion Development bought Solaris in 2009 and made a deal with Simon and Schuster to distribute the books. That continues to the modern-day with Raven Stratagem being one of those books. So let's get to the novel, shall we? Just a note I will be spoiling Ninefox Gambit, so if you haven't read it yet, you might want to hold off on this review.

The Raven Stratagem and Ninefox Gambit are set in the future where mankind has spread out across the galaxy far and wide. Humanity is not unified but our story takes place entirely in the nation of the Hexarchate. It is referred to as such because the nation is ruled by 6 distinct factions each with different responsibilities and abilities. The faction we spend the most time with are the Kel, the primary military faction providing all the front line troops, logistics personnel and so on. Another faction the Shuos does the intelligence work, however. This division keeps any one faction from growing too powerful while ensuring everyone knows their job and their place (sounds like it would keep one hand from knowing what the other is doing as well {most of the faction leaders consider that a feature, not a bug}). Which is important because the Hexarchate and the rest of known space depends on calendar technology. By forcing the population to observe a calendar through set rituals, some of which involve publicly torturing people to death and of course a common date system. Yes, there is a specific faction that handles the torturing of people to death and they are as unpopular as you would think. All of that together empowers a set of technologies known as exotic technology, there are a lot of them. Everything from the drives of starships (called moths) to FTL communications to an increasingly terrifying set of weapons and defenses (and you scoff when I tell you my technology is powered by an orphan heart {I don’t scoff, I judge negatively, there’s a difference}). Weapons that are more used to kill members of the population who don't obey then foreign enemies. The government of the Hexarchate is handled through discussion and consensus of the leaders of each faction. Each faction has its own internal culture and way of choosing leaders. The Kel are ruled by a hive mind that selects a frontman, for example, the Shuos through assassination. Just kill whoever is currently in charge of the Shuos and you get to be the new boss!

The Raven Stratagem picks not too far from where Ninefox Gambit ended. The Hexarchate government decided to kill an entire fleet of their own ships and soldiers to get rid of Kel Cheris, an infantry Captain with amazing skill in math (I understand they are worried about a take over but killing your best and brightest just encourages everyone to be dumb {They want troops and officers who will follow orders and never do anything surprising}) and unfortunately for her, the imagination and willpower to use that skill in battle. They did this despite Cheris winning an incredibly difficult battle that likely saved the Hexarchate from a long and bloody civil war because she's not alone in her head. Cheris' government decided to stick a hitchhiker into her brain when they realized her gifts, a general that had been dead for 400 years. Shuos Jedao, the man who never lost a battle. Who fought outnumbered 8 to 1 and won with minimal casualties. Who in his last battle alive, went mad and killed both the enemy and his own army. However, the Hexarchate has made a mistake (shocking….). They managed to kill thousands of loyal troops, cripple one of their fleets and not hit their target. Worse taking advantage of the disorder this has caused, a rival power known as the Hafn are invading. They have their own calendar but somehow their exotic technologies are working in Hexarchate space, which is bad news. The even worse news? The fleet sent to confront the Hafn has been hijacked, by someone in Kel Cheris body, claiming to be Shuos Jedao. Now a general lauded as unbeatable is loose, with his own fleet and no one can be diverted to stop him without leaving the Hexarchate open to another invasion. While Jedao claims to be using the fleet to stop the Hafn invasion... The question is what will every one do if he's lying? Or worse, what happens if he does stop the invasion because he'll still have a fleet!

Now you might be asking how the hell did Jedao, or at least the person claiming to be Jedao get a hold of the fleet in the first place? Simple, the general just walked on the ship and announced who he was. The reason it was so easy in the first place goes back to the calendar system and the exotic technologies it empowers. One of those being the Kel formation instinct, a mental and emotional compulsion to obey the orders of higher authority that most Kel are helpless to resist. I spoke about how horrifying that was to me on a personal level last review and Mr. Lee is able to give a vivid example of why it would be so terrifying for any trooper in the field in this book. Since Kel command never removed Jedao rank, he's technically one of, if not the most senior general in the universe. So even the fleet (or swarm as they call it) commander General Khiruev can only obey, there is one member of the fleet who can resist, however, Lt Col Brezan. Brezan is one of a minority of people for whom formation instinct just doesn't work, the Kel call people like him crashhawks and they're deeply distrusted. However, in this case, he is the only person able to resist Jedao's commands so he's the Kel's best chance to get their bloody swarm back! However, there is the lingering question of should Brezan try to stop Jedao from accomplishing his plan because so far it seems like Jedao's plan is to defend the Hexarchate from its enemies. Because while the Hexarchate might be the ruthless theocratic state who tortures people to death for having a different definition of what a week is. The Hafn don't seem any better and in fact, given their willingness to destroy whole planetary populations seem quite a bit worse (well when you put it that way…). Of course, you might be wondering, what if Jedao's list of who the Hexarchate's enemies are includes its current government? If it does, wouldn't Jedao be right?

The Raven Stratagem builds off the worldbuilding done in Ninefox Gambit and does so by letting us see the lives of characters like Brezan and Khiruev. Additionally, while the pace of the book is slower, the scope is wider. The terror of the calendar system, for example, is stunningly brought to life through a story from Khiruev childhood when she watched one of her Mother's summarily execute her Father for heresy. The Mother in question was a member of the Vidona faction, whose job it is to enforce the calendar. They have a special ability to kill people with a touch by turning them into a kind of paper. Which they then fold into beautiful shapes. Khiruev wasn't out of middle school when she watched this happen to her Father and this drove her to embrace the Kel and formation instinct because then she could never commit heresy because there would always be someone to tell her what to do and she would know they were right. I honestly have to commend Mr. Lee for managing to make the art of origami not only ominous but psychologically scarring to one of his characters (up next a tea ceremony you will never forget…). This creates a deeper experience for the reader letting us see the system that created our character's first hand. This is a wonderful example of the principle of show don't tell.

Another thing Mr. Lee does to advance that is choosing to us completely different characters as viewpoint characters in this book. The first book was almost completely through the eyes and ears of Cheris so we could get a first-hand view of her struggle with and to understand Jedao. Now by switching to characters, we're not entirely certain if it's Cheris we're dealing with pretending to be Jedao or a reemerging Jedao who has taken over Cheris' body. This creates an element of mystery and uncertainty. We also get a closer look at how the Hexarchate works by Mr. Lee giving us a look at how the Hexarch of the Shous faction deals with his underlings and fellow Hexarchs. As such we get a ringside seat to them casually discussing the genocide of a minority, not because they're a threat to the system but because doing so might emotionally unbalance one of their enemies. Let me make this clear, the leaders of this system consider rounding up a minority and torturing them to death on broadcast a viable strategy even when the chance of it doing anything at all is low (torture is like potato chips you never stop at just one). Which makes a more convincing case of how this system needs to be replaced than any number of impassioned speeches by the main character. In fact what's interesting is there's no real defense given for all of this, beyond the idea that there's no alternative or no better alternative. It's when I saw this that I started seeing the Calendar as a metaphor for political and economic systems. A lot of the time the defense for any given political or economic system, whether it be monarchy, democracy, capitalism, socialism or a single-party state that also operates most of the large corporations is the argument that it's better than any other system or that there is no other alternative other than chaos. Which when pushes is what the citizens of the Hexarchate say, that no one likes the system but... There's no alternative. This is a case of blinders being placed on them, their very conception of how to live has been so deeply molded by the calendar system that it limits what they can conceive of as replacing it. (so are there calendars which don’t require torture? Can we maybe try torturing something other than people?) Which gives me something to think about and how it relates to our own lives. Which is something good science fiction should do? By using the calendar system instead of any recognizable political or economic system, Mr. Lee avoids people getting defensive or accusing him of bias towards any modern system. Allowing the general point to be made cleanly and clearly. I have no idea if he meant to do that or if that's something I'm projecting into the novel but I would encourage everything to just think on that on their own for a while.

The Raven Stratagem is an interesting and thought-provoking book. Mr. Lee builds on the foundations that he laid in the first book and also includes some set up for the future book while also telling a complete story that stands on its own. He even manages to make the battles between enemy fleets interesting through focusing on the cost to the officers and crews and the struggle they go through fighting an unknown enemy for a leader they're not sure is sane or trustworthy. While the Hafn remains faceless and unknowable, there remain enough antagonists within the Hexarchate itself that we have no lack of known villains. The result is a tense novel that holds your interest as you try to figure out just what everyone is up to. The Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee gets an A.

So My recommendation is to read the previous review Here: http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2019/05/ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee.html  or perhaps skimming the outline of the world built so that our reviewer does not have to retread too much ground. 

So we did have a guest editor, Mr. Davis this week and I'd like to thank him for his time and effort.  His comments are in blue.  Where is Dr. Allen, our normal editor, you ask?  Well, he asked me to post a note.  

Hello, this is Dr. Allen, your regular editor coming in after the writing and editing is complete. I was stuck in a civil service office building doing crisis response for Hurricane Dorian in Florida earlier this week. I’ll be back next week. That having been said, the Bahamas got fucked by a Category 5 storm that hit gust wind speeds in excess of 360 kph. The devastation is horrific, entire neighborhoods have literally disintegrated. The official death toll is only 30 right now, but it’s almost certainly at least two orders of magnitude higher than that - with more to come from deaths due to exposure, privation, and disease due to a lack of access to shelter, clean water, and sanitation. The atmospheric forces that stopped Dorian from slamming into Florida are the same ones that stalled it over their entire country. In a sense, their lives were destroyed and in many cases ended so that the residents of the Sunshine State (including me) could live. As a result, I’m encouraging everyone to donate to the Red Cross, Unicef, or any number of other disaster relief charities. At this point, anything helps.

Next week, we cover Dread Empire's Fall by Water Jon Williams.  Until then, keep reading.