July Book Reviews: Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee
I received a free copy from Saga Press via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Release date October 27th, 2026.
I loved Lee's Ninefox Gambit, which I consider one of the definitive SF works of the last few years, so I was excited to get a chance to read an advance copy of his latest. In Code and Codex, Valentina is right-hand man to the Peacock Aurelia, who holds absolute power over the Censorate wielding the power of the universal language. When Aurelia sends her on a mission to retrieve a forbidden text, Valentina begins to unravel a web of secrets that leads directly to the Basilisk, the traitor imprisoned for centuries for destroying his own fleet.
Code and Codex is deeply indulgent on a number of levels, the most obvious being its strong resemblance to Ninefox Gambit. Ancient jail prisoner: 2!!! Many of the elements here will be familiar to people who have read the rest of Lee's oeuvre, from ancient jail prisoner Jenner, the basis of the universe's reality on the lingua rubra, and Valentina's deep and twisted devotion to Aurelia. Of course, there's something to be said about an author who knows what he likes, and we like it too, or the Machineries of Empire series wouldn't have won all those awards. The prose also has a level of playful indulgence that reminded me a touch of Cat Valente. It's rich with little jokes and the sheer joy of language. Take this passage: "the Censorate's original weapon was not guns or germs or (you expected steel annihilation indices." The careless reader who's skimming too fast or isn't familiar with Jared Diamond's pop history, for instance, is not going to have fun with this text. Half the book is comprised of oblique references, and the sentences are textually dense enough that you could annotate them like poetry. Reminds me a bit of Vajra Chandrasekera's writing in that way.
Of course, the downside of all of the attention lavished on sentence-level prose is that the plot is neglected in comparison. The plot is straightforward, starting from Jenner's escape, enough so that I won't spoil any more than that. But the actual flow of the story is discursive and rambling. Only about a third of the novel focuses on the forward-moving plot, with equal dedication given to flashbacks to Aurelia and Valentina's codependent shared youth, or to standalone little anecdotes, like meditations on the nature of language, the story of a particular lab tech who was promoted from a janitorial position, or the evolution of the historic form of spaceship. Fun, but it did yank me out of the flow of the narrative every time, and the book felt like slow going even at a slight three hundred pages.
Deeply rich and indulgent, like a gigantic slice of chocolate cheesecake. However, I do have to say that I'm often more of a the simplicity of the raspberry sorbet person, and at times Code and Codex trips over its own conceits. Still, I don't think that either Ninefox Gambit or Cat Valente enjoyers will turn up their noses at Lee's latest novel.