#1, "Ninefox Gambit", 2016, 364 pages, 99k words.
#2, "Raven Strategem", 2017, 408 pages, 111k words.
#3, "Revenant Gun", 2018, 465 pages, 126k words.
I really liked 1 of the author's short stories in the Clarke Year's Best collection, so I decided to try the trilogy.
I liked the 1st novel for the main character being a mathematician, and their tech being math-based - it made me think of "Neverness" by David Zindell, which we loved Back In The Day.
This civilization is really odd. Originally 7 clans, now 6, their "exotic" tech is powered by adherence to a liturgical calendar. Feast days feature ritual torture of heretics - people who don't want to follow the calendar - which is required to keep the calendar working?!?!?
The 1st book has 2 big events happen.
The 2nd book has 1 big event, & 1 of the major characters decides to absent themselves from the book. That seemed, I don't know, soap opera'ish to me?
The 3rd book has 1 big event. It opens with 1 of the major characters with amnesia - again, a popular soap opera trope.
The stories are kind of slow moving in-between the big events. I noticed they got steadily longer - I'm not sure that was a good thing.
In addition to the odd calendar-based tech stuff, I also found it odd that they had robots that had (recently) become sentient whom they just kind of ignored? That sure seemed like an odd blind spot.
I stayed fairly engaged going throuogh the 3, but at the end, I was really unsure if these were worth the time invested.
Wow, almost 6 years ago I posted "I am definitely not going to read any more books with "empire" in the title." These books have really great & catchy titles, but the series is named "The Machineries of Empire". So maybe I should have followed that resolution?
I also have a collection of his short stories set in this universe. I am guessing I will like these more, but I think it may be a while before I get back to them.
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