Antonio Díaz reseña Raven Stratagem, de Yoon Ha Lee

Después de habernos hablado de Ninefox Gambit, Antonio Díaz vuelve a ponernos los dientes largos con su continuación: Raven Stratagem. ¡Espero que os guste!

Banda sonora de la reseña: Sugiero leer esta reseña escuchando Ravenskill, de Dream Theater (Spotify, YouTube)

Recientemente ha sido publicada la segunda parte de Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, escrita por Yoon Ha Lee. Raven Stratagem es una novela muy distinta a Ninefox Gambit. Apenas comparten personajes, aunque el segundo libro sigue donde se quedó el anterior, y los nuevos personajes introducidos son el gran valor añadido de esta nueva novela. Mientras que en la primera parte casi todo el desarrollo de la historia tenía lugar a través de los ojos de Kel Cheris, Raven Stratagem cuenta con varios puntos de vista que comparten importancia y protagonismo. Desde el hexarca Shuos (indudablemente el más divertido) hasta varios oficiales Kel de diferentes rangos y en situaciones distintas y una pequeña colección de personajes de un solo capítulo. El uso de múltiples puntos de vista y en diferentes momentos (la novela incluye una breve selección de flashbacks) permite hacer lo que en Ninefox Gambit era imposible: ilustrar el universo de Lee. Ése es posiblemente el punto más fuerte de la novela. Lee decide invertir la mayor parte del tiempo en transmitir una imagen bastante clara de lo que es el hexarcado (ese misterioso ‘imperio’ del que sólo teníamos unas pinceladas en la primera parte). Se observa a muchos personajes que simplemente eran mencionados en la primera parte y alguno incluso tiene su propio punto de vista (el hexarca Shuos).

Sin embargo, este enfoque más social y de personajes viene en detrimento de una de las cosas más interesantes de la primera parte: el worldbuilding. Lee dedica mucho menos espacio a seguir profundizando en el extraño sistema de ‘guerra de calendario’, aunque se confirma lo que ya se sabía. Además, tampoco aparecen nuevas ‘armas exóticas’ en escena (armamento con unos efectos de lo más curioso y cuyo funcionamiento depende del calendario en el que se hallen).

Estos dos puntos dan como resultado una novela muchísimo más digerible que la primera. Se ve que el autor pensó que esos primeros capítulos (sobre todo el primero) habían echado atrás a algunos lectores y se ha decantado por un estilo más suave. Sinceramente casi lo echo de menos. He encontrado Raven Stratagem algo sencilla, aunque es cierto que venía preparado para algo bastante más duro y quizás eso ha afectado a mi percepción.

Aunque la ‘guerra de calendarios’ no tiene tanta importancia en esta novela, aún se le dedican las suficientes páginas a las herejías. Así se llama a las sociedades que se desvían del calendario establecido por el hexarcado y que adoptan uno propio. Una de las herejías presentadas resulta increíblemente fascinante por lo alienígena que resulta (a pesar de que no hay señal de extraterrestres en el universo de Lee), y pienso que se podría haber explotado más.

El autor sigue desarrollando su mensaje antimilitarista dedicando más páginas al ‘instinto de formación’. Este ‘formation instinct’ provoca que todos los miembros de la casta guerrera, los Kel, tengan que obedecer a un superior de forma inmediata, absoluta y sin vacilación. Incluso si este superior los conduce ante una muerte evidente. Explorando este concepto, Lee habla sobre lo absurdo de la guerra y los conflictos armados y las consecuencias de un estado en constante estado de guerra. En la novela, los Kel son a la vez asesinos y víctimas, atrapados en un círculo de obediencia ciega. El contraste es muy claro y se pone de manifiesto con la presencia de los ‘crashawks’, una rareza entre los Kel, ya que son miembros de la casta con un ‘instinto de formación’ débil o inexistente. Estos ‘crashawks’, a pesar de ser libres, se encuentran despreciados y marginados por sus colegas y sus posibilidades de ascenso son muy limitadas. ¿Cómo puedes confiar simplemente en la palabra y las acciones de alguien para saber si es leal? La única forma de lealtad es el sometimiento a una obediencia absoluta.

Además, también se teoriza sobre las consecuencias para la población de vivir en un estado con las características mencionadas (casi omnisapiencia, ultra paranoia, su propia inquisición y un gran desprecio por la vida humana) mediante el relato breve de la infancia de algunos de los personajes. Aunque la excusa es justificar las personalidades y las acciones de estos personajes en el presente de la novela, sin duda se aprecia su valor como pequeños recortes de la vida cotidiana en esta distopía que es el hexarcado.

En resumen, Lee sigue escribiendo de una manera sólida y un pelín florida (aunque me ha dado la sensación de que también hemos perdido algo de eso en este volumen), ha hecho un esfuerzo para hacer la obra más accesible (tampoco es que fuera tan complicada la primera) y ha desplazado el enfoque hacia otras materias. Me parece que, en global, me ha gustado un poco más que la primera, aunque por razones distintas. Para aquellos de vosotros que estéis pensando en introduciros en esta saga, os recomiendo un primer vistazo al relato “Extracurricular Activities”. Este relato gratuito, que podéis encontrar aquí, cuenta una pequeña historia sobre Shuos Jedao. En ella Lee hace gala de un sentido del humor que no encontré en Ninefox Gambit pero que está definitivamente presente en Raven Stratagem.

Novedad: Raven Stratagem, de Yoon Ha Lee

Ya está a la venta Raven Strategem, la continuación de Ninefox Gambit (reseñada aquí por Antonio Díaz), de Yoon Ha Lee. 

Esta es su sinopsis:

War. Heresy. Madness. 

Shuos Jedao is unleashed. The long-dead general, preserved with exotic technologies as a weapon, has possessed the body of gifted young captain Kel Cheris. 

Now, General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, racing to the Severed March to stop a fresh enemy incursion, has fallen under Jedao’s sway. Only Khiruev’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, is able to shake off the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. 

The rogue general seems intent on defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev—or Brezan—trust him? For that matter, can they trust Kel Command, or will their own rulers wipe out the whole swarm to destroy one man?

Ebook en oferta: Ninefox Gambit, de Yoon Ha Lee

En estos momentos se puede adquirir en varias tiendas online (Amazon ES, Google Play) el ebook Ninefox Gambit, de Yoon Ha Lee, al precio promocional de 0,70€. Hace unos meses, Antonio Díaz reseñó para nosotros la novela. 

Ésta es la sinopsis del libro:

When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.  

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. 

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.

Antonio Díaz reseña Ninefox Gambit, de Yoon Ha Lee

Siempre es un placer acoger reseñas de Antonio Díaz, y más aún cuando se trata de un libro tan interesante con la novela de debut de Yoon Ha Lee: Ninefox Gambit. ¡Espero que os guste!

Banda sonora de la reseña: Antonio sugiere leer esta reseña escuchando Mad World, de Gary Jules (Spotify, YouTube). 

Ninefox Gambit es la primera novela de Yoon Ha Lee, autor que ya tiene un cierto recorrido en el mundo del relato y la historia corta. A destacar, Conservation of Shadows, una antología de relatos que me viene muy bien recomendada, aunque todavía no le he hincado el diente.

Esta novela debut narra el asedio a la fortaleza Scattered Needles, una de las más importantes del hexarchate. Cuando comienza la acción, ha sido tomada por un grupo de herejes, no se sabe muy bien cómo, y es tarea de Kel Cheris recuperarla. Como arma secreta, el hexarchate le concede su petición de liberar al general y genio militar Shuos Jedao, que nunca ha perdido una batalla. Sin embargo, el general Jedao lleva más de trescientos años encerrado en prisión por aniquilar totalmente en su última batalla a dos ejércitos: el enemigo y el suyo propio.

La novela tiene un comienzo muy duro e intrincado. Yoon Ha Lee te lanza en medio de un combate sin demasiada explicación y te hunde en un mar de términos y conceptos desconocidos. Sin embargo, tras un primer capítulo bastante confuso (y que tuve que releer muy cuidadosamente), el nivel de la terminología se relaja y espacia un poco y descubres que se entiende bastante más de lo que parecía en un principio.

El hexarchate (término inglés para, imagino, “hexarcado”) es una sociedad formada por seis facciones (Kel, Andan, Rahal, Shuos, Nirai y Vidona) que desempeñan diversas funciones (los Kel son la carne de cañón del ejército, por ejemplo) para gobernar un imperio colosal. A mi entender, lo más llamativo del libro es el “calendar system”, como es denominado en la novela, y que parece ser algo (no me queda muy claro si son matemáticas o un artefacto) que sirve, entre otras cosas, para dar vida a la tecnología. Un arma diseñada para un calendario puede no funcionar en otro o puede tener un efecto totalmente imprevisto (y muchas veces devastador para todos los implicados). Lo curioso del asunto es que un calendario en particular sólo parece funcionar en una zona si la gente tiene unas creencias concretas. En una democracia no pueden compartir todas las variables de un calendario que tiene una tiranía, etc.

Este worldbuilding es bastante ingenioso, en gran parte gracias a esta curiosa manera de interpretar el uso de la tecnología. Puesto que el gobierno necesita que la gente crea firmemente en que el Alto Calendario es el único válido (o las naves no volarán y los cañones no dispararás en la dirección correcta), Yoon Ha Lee construye en el hexarchate un imperio con un fuerte aire de extremismo religioso. Se deja entrever la existencia de la programación mental, el adoctrinamiento, la reeducación y otros conceptos muy distópicos como herramientas justificadas e imprescindibles para el funcionamiento de la sociedad. A esto se le une el concepto de las “formations”: agrupaciones de individuos (normalmente soldados en el campo de batalla) que, cuando adoptan unas posiciones grupales determinadas, consiguen efectos extraordinarios (como el funcionamiento de tecnología exótica o alteraciones en el cuerpo y la mente). La verdad es que de no ser por su ambientación futurística, uno casi podría pensar que nos encontramos ante un sistema de magia más propio de una novela de fantasía épica. Pero bueno, la Tercera Ley de Clarke dice: “Cualquier tecnología lo suficientemente avanzada es indistinguible de la magia”. Pienso que Yoon Ha Lee permite así que cada uno realice sus propias interpretaciones sobre el funcionamiento real del sistema.

En el apartado de los personajes, la palma se la lleva la pareja protagonista: Cheris y Jedao. Forman un binomio muy potente. Kel Cheris no es una joven inocente pero su honestidad y lealtad contrastan con la figura mucho más gastada y cínica que es Jedao. Yoon Ha Lee utiliza el contraste entre ambos para explicar cómo se ha ido alcanzando el estado de fanatismo que abunda en el hexarchate. Sin embargo, nadie destaca fuera de estos protagonistas, quizás con la excepción de Vahenz, que proporciona un segundo punto de vista (que esencialmente existe para ayudar a la comprensión del worldbuilding). Nirai Kujen promete ser un personaje muy interesante, pero sus apariciones son más que nada anecdóticas.

El libro transpira antimilitarismo por los cuatro costados. Yoon Ha Lee busca denunciar los horrores de la guerra poniendo el dedo donde más duele: la pérdida de vidas humanas. Los soldados en el universo de Ninefox Gambit no son más que números y se pueden sacrificar si desde el centro de mando cuadran las cifras. Sin embargo, pienso que el autor no ha conseguido todo el impacto que debería con esto, no sólo porque el lector promedio ya sabe que la guerra es espantosa, sino porque a un capítulo con grandes pérdidas humanas le sigue otro donde una carta describe la calidad de los dulces de una tienda específica o una conversación introspectiva sobre un tema totalmente distinto.

Y es que el principal problema que le he encontrado a la novela es el ritmo. Escenas muy lentas y reflexivas intercaladas con las maniobras del asedio rompían la fluidez de la lectura y me sacaban de la misma. No es que ambas líneas no sean interesantes, es más bien la división de escenas y capítulos la que no me cuadra. Quizás la novela se hubiera beneficiado de una reorganización estructural o de la existencia de otro punto adicional de vista más firme. Me aventuro a señalar que la falta de experiencia en la novela larga de su autor (que no en la escritura) es lo que más daño a hecho a Ninefox Gambit.

Aunque Yoon Ha Lee busca incorporar en el texto palabras rebuscadas (me llaman la atención unos cuantos adjetivos como: obdurately, unstinting, nonplussed, cloying, rakish, etc) la verdad es que su estilo es más bien sencillo y a pesar de lo cual un tanto confuso en las escenas de acción (aunque esto puede ser debido al sistema de calendarios). 

La novela me ha dejado tibio en algunos puntos, pero en global he de reconocer que me ha gustado (que no entusiasmado). Ninefox Gambit tiene un final interesantísimo que, aun atando la mayor parte de los hilos, deja los suficientes abiertos para que pueda adivinarse una segunda parte que promete acción y revelaciones a raudales. Especialmente por esas revelaciones (y una mayor comprensión del worldbuilding) la mantendré en mi radar. Quizás debería aventurarme a leer algunos de esos relatos para comprobar cómo se desenvuelve el autor en otros formatos.

(You can also read this review in English/También puedes leer esta reseña en inglés) 

Antonio Díaz reviews Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee

It is always a pleasure for me to host reviews by Antonio Díaz, even more when he analyses a book as interesting as Yoon Ha Lee's debut novel: Ninefox Gambit. Hope you enjoy the review!

Review Soundtrack: Antonio suggests reading this review while listening to Mad World, by Gary Jules (Spotify, YouTube). 

Ninefox Gambit is Yoon Ha Lee's first novel, although he has written quite a number of short stories. Among his production, a highlight is Conservation of Shadows, a short story collection reviewed in this very site by Odo, and whose positive opinion encouraged me to give this book a go.

This debut novel tells the story of the Fortress of Scattered Needles siege. This Fortress in one of the most important in the hexarchate. When the story starts, the fortress has been taken by a heretic group, no one knows exactly how, and Kel Cheris is commanded to get it back. The hexarchate lets Shuos Jedao, commander and military genius, join her as a secret weapon. Jedao has never lost a battle; however, he's been in prison for 300 years in account of him having totally killed two armies in the last battle he participated in: the enemy's and his.

Ninefox Gambit has a hard and intricate beginning. Yoon Ha Lee throws the reader into the middle of a battle without further ado and sinks them in a sea of technical terms and unknown mechanics. However, after a somewhat confusing first chapter (which required an extra careful second read), the intricacy level relaxes and you discover that you got more than it seemed at first.

The hexarchate is a society formed by six factions (Kel, Andan, Rahal, Shuos, Nirai and Vidona) which have different roles (for example the army is formed by Kel) and together rule a huge empire.What stands out the most is the “calendar system”, and that it looks like is a key piece to interpret technology use and its effects. A weapon designed to work under a specific calendar may not work under another (or it may work in unexpected, devastating ways). What is more important, it seems that a calendar only takes hold in a zone if the people living there have a particular set of beliefs. A democracy cannot share all variables (and therefore technology) with a calendar that works in a dictatorship, and so on.

This worldbuilding is quite inspired, mainly thanks to this exotic way of interpreting technology. Because the government needs the people to strongly believe in the High Calendar as the only valid option (or spaceships won't fly and cannons may shoot in unexpected directions), Yoon Ha Lee builds in the hexarchate a religious extremist empire. Indoctrination, reeducation, mental programming and other dystopian ideas are pointed out as possible weapons in the hexarchate arsenal. Weapons that are needed, it seems, to warrant the life and society as we know them. Furthermore, the novel portrays the use of “formations”: a disposition of people (generally soldiers in a battlefield) that, when they adjust their positions to a particular setting they release extraordinary effects (like making an exotic technology work or producing alterations in mind and body). In truth, despite its futuristic setting, one may think that Ninefox Gambit has a magical system very much like the ones in an epic fantasy. Nevertheless, Clarke already warned us in his 3^rd Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology in indistinguishable from magic”. It is my belief that Yoon Ha Lee wants the reader to make their own assumptions about the real workings of the system.

Talking about characters, the main pair, Cheris and Jedao, form a very powerful combination. Kel Cheris is not a young and naive cadet but her honesty and loyalty make the cynicism and weariness of Jedao stand out with some intelligent repartee. Yoon Ha Lee uses the contrast between them to explain how the society has turn out more and more extremist over time. However, no other character is worth mentioning (with the possible exception of Vahenz, and just because he provides information that leads to a deeper understanding of the worldbuilding). Nirai Kujen is also a promising character that sadly only has a couple of very brief scenes.

The book portrays a profound anti-militarism stance. Yoon Ha Lee denounces war's horrors by pointing out how much lives are lost in an armed conflict. Soldiers in the Ninefox Gambit universe are just numbers and they can be sacrificed if the commander centre thinks it is mathematically worthy. However, I think the writer didn't manage to make the most of it. Not only because the average reader already knows that war is horrible, but because a chapter with an appalling human loss count is followed by another with a letter describing some pastry or sweet's quality in a shop or a scene with a really introspective talk about a totally different topic.

Therefore, the main problem I found in the book is its pace. Really slow and pensive scenes mixed up with siege maneuvers that broke the rhythm and pulled me out. It's not that both things aren't interesting, is that the structure and scene positioning didn't work for me. Maybe the book would have benefited from a reorganization or a solid extra point of view. I'd like to go on a limb to point out that maybe the lack of experience of the author in the long format (and not in writing) is what damages Ninefox Gambit in this regard.

Although Yoon Ha Lee is prone to write with some unusual words – obdurately, unstinting, nonplused, cloying and rakish, among others, stood out to me (a non-English native, by the way) – the truth is that his style is generally direct albeit a bit confusing in some action scenes (again that can be because of the calendar system).

The book left me a lukewarm feeling in some moments, but globally I admit that I liked it (although not loved it). Ninefox Gambit has a very interesting ending that, even solving all the major plot points, leaves enough minor stuff wide open in order to foresee a second part. This likely new book will, hopefully, include the bunch of action and shocking revelations that are hinted in this one. And are those revelations (and the hope of a better comprehension of the worldbuilding) what will draw me to it. Meanwhile, I may check some of those short stories to see how Yoon Ha Lee works in that format.

(You can also read this review in Spanish/También puedes leer esta reseña en español) 

Novedad: Ninefox Gambit, de Yoon Ha Lee

Hoy se pone a la venta Ninefox Gambit, una novela de space opera que supone el debut en distancias largas de la escritora Yoon Ha Lee. 

Ésta es la sinopsis del libro:

When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.

Interview with Yoon Ha Lee

As a part of the special The Gender & The Genre of El Fantascopio Blog, today Leticia Lara and myself interview Yoon Ha Lee, whose collection Conservation of Shadows I have recently reviewed (in Spanish). You can read the Spanish translation of the interview at Leticia's wonderful blog Fantástica Ficción. Hope you enjoy the interview!

Leticia Lara & Odo: When did you know you wanted to become a writer? Which authors have influenced you the most? Is there any current writer that you admire?

Yoon Ha Lee: My 3rd grade teacher, Mr. McCracken, inspired me. Before then I never considered it, but he was very enthusiastic about teaching creative writing--I seem to recall that he dressed up as a superhero, Story Man, once a week, for special sessions--and I loved making up stories so much that I decided I wanted to become a writer.  3rd grade is a terrible time to lock in a career choice, but there you go.

One of the first authors to influence me was Anne McCaffrey, whom a friend introduced me to.  I loved the time travel in Dragonflight and the scope of the worldbuilding for Pern. Later on, in middle school, I yearned to imitate Piers Anthony and Simon R. Green for their clarity and vigor of prose.  Piers Anthony was also especially helpful in that he wrote cantankerous Author's Notes in which he talked about the more grubby business side of being a writer and potential pitfalls. I found this very illuminating.  I don't read Anthony anymore, as my tastes have changed, but I wrote to him once when I was in middle school, telling him how much I liked his works and that I wanted to be a writer, and he wrote back encouraging me to keep trying.  I'll always be grateful to him for that.

Later on, in high school, the two authors who taught me that language can be beautiful in itself were Patricia A. McKillip and Roger Zelazny. And Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game was the single book that made me switch from writing fantasy to science fiction (my early stories were closer to sf, as opposed to the recent ones that are more science fantasy), because I discovered that I really wanted to write about war and ethics.

One of my favorite authors today is K.J. Parker, whose mixture of black comedy, cynicism, and attention to historical detail is amazing; I can't decide whether I love "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" or Purple and Black more.  I still enjoy Simon R. Green for his larger-than-life, gung-ho characters and their adventures, and recently I had a lot of fun reading Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet books. I'm behind on short stories, as I no longer read as fast as I used to, but I'm really impressed by E. Lily Yu and Ken Liu.

LL&O: How long does it take you to write a story? Where do you draw inspiration from?

YHL: This depends on my health and how much trouble the story gives me!  If I can manage to stay well, I usually start at 250-500 words/day and ramp up to 500-1,000 words/day, which will tend to give me a short story in a couple of weeks of actual writing time. The biggest predictor not related to health is how clearly I understand the ending I am aiming the story toward.  If I know what the ending is, then I have a much better chance of being able to complete it quickly. These days I try to avoid even starting to write until I have an outline. For a short story an outline may just be a few lines--the opening, the conflict, the ending point--but this skeleton is crucial so I don't get stuck!

Often, after the rough draft, I will try to get a beta reader to make sure that the story has come out all right. Some of my drafts come out pretty clean, but some of them are very messy. I'm very grateful to my beta readers for their time and hard work!

Inspiration: I have a lot of odd hobbies, and I like to read widely in order to feed my writing.  Some of the topics I draw on again and again, because I know them a little better, are mathematics, linguistics, music. I was a math major and I think that math is very appropriate as a source of imagery for speculative fiction, since it's foundational for science. As for linguistics, English is not my first language, Korean was (although I have lost fluency in it), and I've always been fascinated by languages.  Right now I am trying to learn Japanese, mainly because my boyfriend (now husband) got me hooked on anime and manga years ago and I can find instructional material for it that works for me.  Music-wise, I had the obligatory piano lessons, plus viola and some classical guitar, and I am a hobbyist composer.  But you know, the oddest things find their way into stories. "The Bonedrake's Penance," which just went up on BeneathCeaseless Skies, has cupcake frosting because my mother was obsessed with elaborate frosting decorations when I was a small child.  "Effigy Nights" draws on my childhood love of making paper dolls. "The Battle of Candle Arc" and "Between Two Dragons" draw on East Asian history (the Imjin War, 1592-1598). I like colliding disparate elements to create worlds.

LL&O: You write both fantasy and science fiction. Do you approach these genres differently? 

YHL: I think of fantasy and science fiction mainly as marketing categories. Pragmatically speaking, this affects what markets I can send which stories to.  I'm often bemused by the categorization quarrels, because what I usually write is fantasy using science fictional elements. For instance, "The Battle of Candle Arc" involves a space battle, but the technology is essentially magic with a side of vector calculus and abstract algebra. The "science fictional" guns in "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" might as well have been magic wands. It's all in the furniture.

LL&O: Do you think that the authors from non-English speaking countries are more prominent right now in science fiction and fantasy than they were a few years ago? What do you think about reading translations? Do you think the translator needs to be guided by the author?

YHL: I feel they probably are, but it's hard for me to be sure. I do not look up an author's nation of origin or ethnicity; I just read the story. Names alone are deceiving--my name is pretty unambiguously Korean, but my daughter has my husband's family name, which is German, and a Western first and middle name, so you'd never guess from that that she has any Asian blood.

            

Because of health problems, in the past few years I have not been reading a whole lot of sf/f lately either. These days I'm more likely to be reading nonfiction for research, indie roleplaying games (many are available as PDFs, so I can load a bunch of them onto my Kindle DX), or older works that catch my eye. To keep up with a few of the more recent works of short fiction, my strategy lately is to watch Lois Tilton's reviews at Locus Online (http://www.locusmag.com) and try out a few of the stories that she makes sound interesting by downloading epubs to my Kobo Mini ereader. Tilton and I don't have entirely the same tastes, but I like the way she summarizes stories so I can decide for myself.

            

The translated works I have read most recently are Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (trans. into English by William Weaver) and Forest of a Thousand Demons: A Hunter's Saga by D.O. Fagunwa (trans. into English by Wole Soyinka). What I was struck by was the beauty of the language, which of course makes me wonder about how these works read in the original languages. I don't seek translations out, mainly because I already feel overwhelmed by the pile of books in my house, but I don't avoid them either.

            

I have been translated into a few languages (Polish, Russian, Italian, and Korean, I think) but I had no influence over the process. I am not fluent in any of those languages and feel I would get in the way. I don't know how translators feel about this matter, however.

LL&O: You are American of Korean descent. Would you say that your heritage has influenced your writing?

YHL: Yes, with the caveat that my earlier stories didn't show this at all. For example, my second published story, "Echoes Down an Endless Hall," has cockamamie French/Italian-ish names (I'm bad at naming characters, I took French in high school, and I was in a hurry) in a more-or-less Western future, with bonus Swan Lake references because my father was a ballet aficionado and taught me and my sister to love Tchaikovsky. I had grown up reading sf/f that was largely Western in focus, so I found it very difficult to imagine that anything else was possible. Some years back on LJ I saw discussion of this problem led by various people, such as coffeeandink, oyceter, and deepad--I'm sorry I don't have cites, I lost all the links ages ago--and I decided that this was something I could address in my own writing. I don't pull out Korean influences for every story, of course.  Right now I'm working on a (short) science fiction future retelling of part of the Iliad, because that's also a story I grew up with and love.  (My dad again.)  But since it's not like there's an overabundance of English-language sf/f that draws on Korean history and culture for inspiration, I daresay I will write more such stories in the future.

LL&O: When reading “Ghostweight”, “The Battle of Candle Arc” or “The Book of Locked Souls” the We See a Different Frontier anthology comes to mind. Do you think stories can be used as a tool to talk about postcolonialism?

YHL: Well, sure. I'm not familiar with this anthology, but stories are a tool, period. You can use them to talk about postcolonialism or anything else that you can get your reader to sit still for. You could probably use them as a tool for deconstructing cat macros.  In the case of "Ghostweight" and "The Book of Locked Doors," I was thinking of Japanese colonialism and Korean history, although neither story is directly based on history other than the generalized dynamic of oppression.

            

"The Battle of Candle Arc" is based on a more fantastical setting, although from the reader's viewpoint I suppose there's no way to tell. I actually wrote it to expand on a couple lines in a novel in which the eponymous battle is mentioned as backstory. So the situation of the heptarchate's police state against the various heresies came from the novel's setting.

LL&O: What is your opinion on the situation of women in genre fiction?

YHL: If you mean women as genre fiction writers, I have seen enough pushback from people claiming that this is a "solved" problem that I doubt any such thing has already occurred.

            

If you mean women as in female characters, I would still like to see more of them. I have a ten-year-old daughter and she loves reading fantasy adventures and stories about dragons. I would be so happy to be able to hand her more such stories with girl protagonists instead of girl sidekicks. (I guess it's too much to hope for more girl biracial protagonists; her father is Caucasian.)

LL&O: How do you cope with your day-time job and your writing? Do you feel the influence of your mathematics background when developing your stories?

YHL: Okay, this one's easy. I don't have a standard day job. During the day, I write and get some chores done.  (I wash dishes or move the laundry when I get stuck on a story.)  Then I take care of our daughter once she gets home from school. I have bipolar disorder, so this makes it difficult for me to work a standard full-time job. I am very fortunate in that our family's financial situation makes it possible for me to stay home and devote my days to writing.

            

I definitely use my background in mathematics to write stories. The obvious one is in mathematical imagery such as fractals.  But the other is in the way I structure stories. I think of a story as being like a proof: once you know what you're trying to prove--that is, the final emotion or thought that you want to leave the reader with--everything has to lead up to that final point. This is probably not what my math professors wanted me to be doing with my degree...

LL&O: Languages (and their rules) are very prominent in your work. Do you think that the symbols we use and the languages we speak define, somehow, who we are?

YHL: I would say that it influences who we are, but I'm not sure I agree with the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, if that's what you're getting at. There's definitely something that gets lost in translation between languages, however, something I experience every time I talk to my mom; she is only fluent in Korean and I am only fluent in English, so communication becomes an issue. One of the reasons languages interest me is that different languages have different ways of expressing things that are similar but not quite the same. Sometimes I try to explain to my husband what a particular expression in Korean means and I find that I can't encompass the concept concisely, when in Korean it is very simple. So I guess there's something there, even if it's elusive.

LL&O: Are social networks important for you relationships with other authors and with your readers?

YHL: I keep connected to some writer friends through Dreamwidth, and sometimes people leave me lovely comments on my stories when I post links to online publications. I do have FaceBook and Twitter accounts, but I mostly use those to communicate with friends on non-writer matters. On Twitter I usually talk about gaming and anecdotes about my daughter's hijinks, not so much about writing. I like having a couple of spaces where I can relax!

LL&O: What are you working on right now? Could you give us a sneak peek on your future projects? 

YHL: My agent, Jennifer Jackson, is shopping around a space opera novel, Ninefox Gambit. It takes place in the world of "The Battle of Candle Arc": a disgraced captain has a chance to redeem herself by retaking a space fortress captured by heretics, but her worst enemy may be the undead tactician assigned to her as an advisor. And yes, General Jedao shows up again.

            

I'm also working on another couple novels in that setting, and developing an unrelated space opera where stardrives run on music theory.

LL&O: Where can our readers learn more about you and your work? 

YHL: I keep a website at http://yoonhalee.com. It has excerpts from published works and notes on forthcoming stories, as well as contact information if anyone should want to send me a note. (I must admit to only being fluent in English, though.)

LL&O: Any other thing you'd like to add? 

YHL: No, I think that's it.

LL&O: Thank you very much for your time and your answers!