Jedao’s mind has been preserved for use as a weapon by Kel command, which Cheris now carries within her own. In late February 2021, I decided to start a SFF book club for myself and a few friends, mostly so I could share my love of SFF books with other people. It’s one that I definitely suggest reading a sample of it first, so you’re not sitting through almost 11 hours of text utterly hating yourself.

Usual disclaimer: as I am reviewing a whole series at once, I am not going to get too heavily into the plot points of the latter two books, just the first. Think of Cheris’ world as being a little like the world of Star Wars, except grittier and darker and far, far bloodier. I could tell you so many little details about the world, but learning them by yourself, bit by bit, putting puzzle pieces together in your head and getting that aha moment, is such a big part of why this novel is fun.This can end in three ways: rebellion against the Hexarchate, attempts to reform the system, or assimilation.

In addition, in the short story Extracurricular Activities, there’s a character who uses they/them pronouns.

We can read into their work themes and connections that aren’t there because it allows us to feel more secure in our critique: oh, look at us, aren’t we so knowledgeable of other cultures?

She is concerned about doing the right thing for those under her command and for the people of the hexarchate, whom she, as a Kel soldier, is supposed to protect. Humanity can become a post-scarcity space-faring civilisation, if it chooses to set aside petty differences and work together towards achieving that goal. At Kel Academy, an instructor had explained to Kel Cheris’s class that the threshold winnower was a weapon of last resort, and not just for its notorious connotations. It probably also helps that not a lot of the current generation of sci-fi fans have actually read it.By not explaining any of the rules of calendars, or how technology works, it feels both like: a) Lee is deliberately keeping information back for no reason other than to be obscure, and b) as if Lee is doing it so he doesn't have to live by any rules, and can make up whatever he likes.

On the relationships between characters existing in this universe ( their universe, where none of this is strange at all), and the clashes between systems of belief. Just as calendrical warfare and Cheris’s and Jedao’s siege of the Fortress of Scattered Needles is waged via numbers and odds and games, so too is Cheris and Jedao’s tenterhooks-of-a-relationship. This is the first in a series and though left in a cliffhanger, the story of the initial book is nicely wrapped up so you aren't left completely in exquisite anticipation. Such things are small in the face of achieving and ensuring unity, and no one knows this more than a Kel. We need to look at all the violence, the oppression, the suffering we see around us, and ask: Is holding on to what we have worth what is being paid to maintain it?

Was the use of consensus reality influenced, at least in part, by Lee’s Korean background and the dichotomy between North and South Korea, wherein the former is quite literally a modern-day example of consensus reality in practice? I enjoyed how well women were represented - I was shocked at myself when I realised how many times I assumed a character was male until he stated their gender was female. However, if another set of beliefs start seeping into the system, things start slowly breaking down, causing a phenomenon known as calendrical rot.