Yoon Ha Lee's Blog

I’ll be tabling at the Louisiana Zine Fest (not yet listed but confirmed)! I’ll be there with a Ninefox comic zine and solo journaling / micro-TTRPG zines, including some never before released to the wild! Come say howdy if you’re in the area.

In this explosive sequel to Moonstorm, teen mecha pilot Hwa Young returns to her rebel roots to fight against the Imperial forces—but, as she grapples with her warring allegiances, who can she really trust? Perfect for fans of Iron Widow and the Skyward series!

Hwa Young and her pilot comrades have betrayed the Empire to save it from its own destruction—but what comes next? It’s been just two months since the lancer squad stopped imperial forces from deploying a devastating singularity bomb and taken shelter with the rebel clanners, who have kept them busy with raids against their ex-leaders. Their mission have helped numb the shock of recent battles… for now.

Meanwhile, Hwa Young’s best friend, technician Geum, has been left behind on the imperial fleet, imprisoned for aiding Hwa Young’s deceit against the Empire. Hwa Young is desperate to retrieve Geum—but Geum is slowly realizing that Hwa Young’s loyalties aren’t as clear cut as zie once believed.

As Hwa Young delves deeper into the rebels’ inner circles, she soon realizes that the clanners are just as cutthroat as the imperials, leaving her to wonder who she can really trust… and at odds with Geum, the one person she thought she could count on.

Red Stick Rhythms Launch Party
Saturday, March 9, 2025, 2-5 p.m.
East Baton Rouge Parish Library Main Library at Goodwood (map)

I’ll be there with CDs of my album Banner the Deuce of Gears and sheet music (including “Burn It Down with Math,” originally feat. Liozh Dia!) and a morin khuur (Mongolian horseheaded fiddle) I’m learning to play. Come say howdy!

I’ll be at the Louisiana Book Festival – come say hi!

Louisiana State Library
701 North 4th Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70802

Between Two Worlds: Young Adult Fantasy
with Yoon Ha Lee and Brittany N. Williams
9:15 am to 10:00 am
State Library, Fifth Floor, Serials Area

Book Signing
10:15 am to 11:00 am
Cavalier House Books Tent

Do You Believe in (Middle Grade) Magic?
with Marti Dumas. Yoon Ha Lee, Jasper Price, and Sarah Tolcser
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
State Library, Second Floor Meeting Room

Book Signing
2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent

The life and times of an ~actress fronting for an AI ~novelist that ~writes books like Wrecked and Overripe and Plastered and Mastered. Free to read!

I’ve sold a new book! I’ll quote the Publishers Marketplace entry:

…CODE AND CODEX, about plans to reach backwards and forwards in time by revising history in this space opera adventure of linguistics magic in the author’s return to adult science fiction, to Joe Monti at Saga Press, in a pre-empt, for publication in summer 2025, by Seth Fishman at The Gernert Company (NA).

a.k.a the book I have half-written while waiting for edits on YA book #2.

In a society where conformity is valued above all else, a teen girl training to become an Imperial pilot is forced to return to her rebel roots to save her world in this adrenaline-fueled sci-fi adventure—perfect for fans of Iron Widow and Skyward!

Hwa Young was just ten years old when imperial forces destroyed her rebel moon home. Now, six years later, she is a citizen of the very empire that made her an orphan.

Desperate to shake her rebel past, Hwa Young dreams of one day becoming a lancer pilot, an elite group of warriors who fly into battle using the empire’s most advanced tech—giant martial robots. Lancers are powerful, and Hwa Young would do anything to be the strong one for once in her life.

When an attack on their boarding school leaves Hwa Young and her classmates stranded on an imperial space fleet, her dreams quickly become a reality. As it turns out, the fleet is in dire need of pilot candidates, and Hwa Young—along with her brainy best friend Geum, rival Bae, and class clown Seong Su—are quick to volunteer.

But training is nothing like what they expected, and secrets—like the fate of the fleet’s previous lancer squad and hidden truths about the rebellion itself—are stacking up. And when Hwa Young uncovers a conspiracy that puts their entire world at risk, she’s forced to make a choice between her rebel past and an empire she’s no longer sure she can trust.

NINEFOX GAMBIT RPG is a tabletop roleplaying game of heresy and hard choices set in the tyrannical interstellar empire known as the Hexarchate.

YOU belong to one of the Hexarchate’s six factions. YOU are entangled with a regime that can change the very laws of physics—at the cost of human sacrifice.

Will you…

– CONFRONT your leaders, at the risk of being labeled a heretic and hunted down?
– CHANGE the system from within, despite the chance that you’ll be crushed by it instead?
– COLLABORATE to preserve what you can, at the cost of your principles?

Assimilation is a fate worse than death.

Designed by Yoon Ha Lee and based on his Hugo-nominated Machineries of Empire space opera series (Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun, Hexarchate Stories). Included are three starter scenarios by Marie Brennan, author of The Memoirs of Lady Trent and, with Alyc C. Helms as M. A. Carrick, the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy.

Mechanics inspired by Fate and Dog Eat Dog, plus an all-new clock/assimilation push-your-luck system in which players balance the chance of success against risk of assimilation by their tyrannical government. Appendices include additional setting information, optional rules for a seventh heretical faction (the Liozh), and pregenerated characters from each faction, including notable figures from the books such as Kel Cheris, Shuos Jedao, and Nirai Kujen.

Forthcoming in October 2023 from Android Press.

– Preorder the ebook (epub, $9.99 USD).
– Preorder the paperback print version ($19.99 USD).
– Preorder the special hardcover edition, featuring splash art ($44.99 USD).

Cover art by Stephanie Folse (larger version).

For more information, contact Yoon Ha Lee (deuceofgearsart@gmail.com).

Photographer: Caleb Bourque; full-resolution version available here [4.6 MB].

NINEFOX GAMBIT RPG is a tabletop roleplaying game of heresy and hard choices set in the tyrannical interstellar empire known as the Hexarchate.

YOU belong to one of the Hexarchate’s six factions. YOU are entangled with a regime that can change the very laws of physics—at the cost of human sacrifice.

Will you…

CONFRONT your leaders, at the risk of being labeled a heretic and hunted down?

CHANGE the system from within, despite the chance that you’ll be crushed by it instead?

COLLABORATE to preserve what you can, at the cost of your principles?

Assimilation is a fate worse than death.

Designed by Yoon Ha Lee and based on his Hugo-nominated Machineries of Empire space opera series. Included are three starter scenarios by Marie Brennan, author of The Memoirs of Lady Trent and, with Alyc C. Helms as M. A. Carrick, the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy.

Forthcoming from Android Press in 2023.

Your characters are investigators specializing in occult texts. Unfortunately, the texts fight back.

Cracktastic tiny 2-player epistolary TTRPG for anyone who delights in terribad fonts. :)

Available for pay-what-you-want, including FREE, here.

Dedicated to Eller.