Ninefox Gambit

Executive Summary: So I enjoyed this one enough to give it four stars, but there is a giant caveat to that. In order to really enjoy it, I basically had to disregard the science completely. If you're able to do that like I was, you may enjoy it as I did. If not, you may find this a hard read.

Audiobook: Emily Woo Zeller does a pretty good job with the narration. She does a few voices, and reads with good volume and inflections. She seems like a good fit for this book, and I'll continue the series in audio if she remains the narrator.

Full Review
So I'm generally not a big reader of “hard” Sci-Fi. I tend to prefer Space Opera, or Space Fantasy instead. I'm not sure you can really call this “hard” sci-fi, since it doesn't really follow any known math/science that I'm aware of.

It does try to get pretty in depth with the “science” though. I must say I found it all very confusing. Not long into it, I decided to essentially just treat the science like fantasy and ignore most of the details.

In my mind, it came down to this:

1) Calendar Math somehow powers a variety of technology of the ruling empire
2) It's critical to how their soldiers fight in battle
3) It keeps the leaders powerful and in control
4) Going against it is pretty much the worst thing you can do and is an act of war/punishable by death.

Beyond that, nothing really matters as far as I'm concerned. That's enough for you to sit back and enjoy the plot. It has some pretty good space opera aspects, which is definitely more of my speed.

I wasn't really sure what to make of Kel Cheris at first, but I came to really enjoy her character. I particularly like the way she acts with the various artificial intelligence. I spent most of the book trying to figure out the deal with Shuos Jedao, and that's largely what led to me enjoying the story.

Things leave off in a pretty unresolved way, but I knew going in that this was the first book in a new series, so I'm not that surprised. I'll definitely be picking up the second book when it's out. I just hope focuses less on the “science” and more on the conflicts that he set up in this book. There is only so much I can ignore before I start to grow bored of a book.