finds it a source of continual delight that math can be mined for story ideas. Lee’s novel Ninefox Gambit won the Locus Award for best first 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 applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Fox Snare, and reported the following:
From page 69:Visit Yoon Ha Lee's website.The medic was unamused. “I’m sorry, who are you two and what are you doing in my sick bay?”Fox Snare is the third of the Thousand Worlds trilogy, so I suspect it’s going to confuse people coming in without having read either Dragon Pearl (book one) or Tiger Honor (book two)! On this page, Cadet Sebin is trying to figure out what’s fishy about Yang Miho, and why their friend Min is also acting so suspiciously - but without the context set up earlier in Fox Snare (and, in fact, in the previous two books) the poor reader will have no idea what’s going on! Whoops.
“Pardon me,” the older woman cut in smoothly. “I’m Yang Miho, assistant to the minister of defense. I’m part of the diplomatic party that will be taking this fine vessel to the border world of Jasujeong. I thought I’d take a tour…”
A twinge of headache returned as Miho steered the medic away from us and toward an office. I’d met her before. It must have been at that disastrous party. I hoped I hadn’t offered her mortal insult and now she was snubbing me as a result. but then again, I wasn’t a person worth the effort.
That said, I had so much fun with Fox Snare, which I pitched to my editor as “fox spirit and tiger spirit try to survive after crash-landing on a contested death planet amid diplomatic tensions”! I’m always down for death planets. Min, the fox spirit in question, is bearer of the powerful Dragon Pearl, which can rapidly terraform a planet. Sounds great, except the Thousand Worlds’ dragons don't like the fact that she’s broken their monopoly on terraforming (and they’re much slower). When Min and Sebin join a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between the Thousand Worlds and the rival Sun Clans, the meeting is sabotaged - and if they don’t escape the death planet, war may be next.
The Page 69 Test: Revenant Gun.
My Book, The Movie: Ninefox Gambit.
Q&A with Yoon Ha Lee.
--Marshal Zeringue
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