novel, and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke awards; its sequels, Raven Stratagem and Revenant Gun, were also Hugo finalists. His middle grade space opera Dragon Pearl won the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature and the Locus Award for best YA novel, and was a New York Times bestseller. Lee’s short fiction has appeared in publications such as Tor.com, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Audubon Magazine, as well as several year’s best anthologies.
Lee’s hobbies include composing music, art, and destroying the reader. He lives in Louisiana with his husband and an extremely lazy catten.
Lee's new novel is Moonstorm.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:
The last book I read was an ARC of James S. A. Corey’s The Mercy of Gods. I knew I was going to like this, as I enjoyed The Expanse, but I did not expect to be snarling carnivorously at everyone who came in between me and my reading experience! Besides, my catten is better at carnivorous snarling anyway. (Kidding. She is a giant round marshmallow.)Visit Yoon Ha Lee's website.
I’m betraying my age, but The Mercy of Gods is like the best parts of William Sleator’s supremely creepy psychology experiment children’s horror novel House of Stairs if you mashed it up with the far-flung alien empires in C.J. Cherryh books like Hunter of Worlds and The Faded Sun, and added heavy doses of microbiology, ineffable mystery, and body horror. We start with a planet settled by humans, but to which humans are not native; the humans themselves have no idea how they got there. On the eve of a triumph in microbiology research, that world becomes the latest conquest by aliens who rate other species as (a) useful (b) extinct.
This book absolutely grabbed me because the authors take the opening gambit of telling us, from the viewpoint of an alien, that the humans win in their rebellion. We already know the outcome. So the question then becomes not “Will the humans win?” but “How will they win, and will the price be worth it?” I see possible glimpses of the former, and am terrified already of the latter.
Beyond that, I am ride or die already for the two lead characters: Dafyd, who looks like a useless nepotism hire bench monkey except he’s a genius at interpersonal/soft skills except when it comes to his own love life; and Jessyn, a scientist whose struggles with anxiety and depression in some ways make her the best prepared to deal with hostile aliens.
In any case, I have already penciled “MOAR CARNIVOROUS SNARLING” into my planner for whenever the next book drops!
The Page 69 Test: Revenant Gun.
My Book, The Movie: Ninefox Gambit.
Q&A with Yoon Ha Lee.
The Page 69 Test: Fox Snare.
My Book, The Movie: Moonstorm.
The Page 69 Test: Moonstorm.
--Marshal Zeringue
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