#ninefox gambit

[deuceofgears]

Romancing the Vote was terrific!

I'm wildly surprised bids went this high?! Thank you to everyone who supported Romancing the Vote. (Yes, I made bids on stuff. Different stuff. I even won a couple!) They're processing a lot of donations so I guess I wait to find out if the winning bidder has particular Items of Interest they want annotated. :3

Meanwhile, I have bibliographic citation to wrassle for orchestration so back to work!

[deuceofgears]

back to shenanigans

I am not currently under contract (respite to do a part-time MFA and recuperate) so back to freewriting whatever the heck I feel like!

...I still think military sf squad would be funniest. Maybe throw in some dark romance because SHENANIGANS.

[deuceofgears]

a brace of fountain pens

Commissioned (in separate years) from Renée Meeks of Scriptorium Pens. She's an absolute pleasure to work with and the pens, which really do belong together, are beautiful and write so well. The rollstoppers were based on my Ninefox emblem design.

[deuceofgears]

Romancing the Vote and an annotated Ninefox Gambit offer (plus more!)

This is US-specific in its goals, but Romancing the Vote “is a massive auction (July 1 to 6) featuring your favorite authors, crafters, comic book artists, screenwriters, video game creators, scientists, and more! this year all money raised goes to Vote Riders and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, two organizations fighting to preserve the right for every person to have their vote counted.” Many auctions will be open to international bidders, though!

I have three auctions listed; feel free to ping me at [email protected] if you have questions about specifications.

Ninefox Gambit: Annotated - Are you dying to know what backstory got cut (entire flashbacks), added on a whim (formation instinct, the spur-of-the-moment invention that warped the entire Machineries of Empire trilogy), whether Jedao was lying/telling the truth/AVOCADO_ERROR for every single statement or where the mathy bits were supposed to go before my husband the astrophysicist told me to cut them? What was behind XYZ keyboardsmash worldbuilding word choice or where the Korean military history references were hiding? You're in luck! I'm offering one (1) typed and/or handwritten (hand health permitting) annotated copy of NINEFOX GAMBIT. The margins are small so you're getting the notes in a separate/companion notebook or volume. Maybe scurrilous explanatory cartoons/character sketches if I'm inspired. You never know! (The starting bid is $77 because I'm a troll and the extra copy I have lying around is probably the fancy edition hardcover, sorry not sorry.)

Tarot Art of Your Character! - Digital painting/illustration in an ink-and-wash inspired style; typical examples from the Ninefox Tarot WIP. Digital delivery only.

Visit Original Link

Bespoke orchestral music - Orchestral composition up to two minutes and mockup using VSTs (my toolbox includes Vienna Symphonic Library, Orchestral Tools, 8dio, Performance Samples, Impact Soundworks… too many to list, really). My music reel has short examples; my Bandcamp, especially the mini-album Trailures and Other Fiascoes, has full pieces if you’d like to explore further. Digital delivery only (for the audio file; this doesn’t include an engraved score). I've attached an example hybrid orchestral piece I composed and mocked up, "Fragmentation and Other Fiascoes."

A selection of other auctions (of the many!) that might be of interest:

Annotated copy of Ursula Whitcher’s North Continent Ribbon - On Nakharat, every contract is a ribbon and every ribbon is a secret, braided tight and tucked behind a veil. I’m biased because I read a number of these luminous, nuanced, thought-provoking science fiction stories, linked by a common culture/setting, in draft, as well as blurbing the book; the collection was a finalist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin prize. Ursula herself is ferociously brilliant across multiple disciplines: mathematician, editor, author, poet, knitter/knitting pattern designer (notably including - I’m biased again - the Jedao gloves pattern!), activist. If you don’t bid on this, I will because I am dyyyyying for deets.

1-Hour Biology/Worldbuilding consult with niqaeli #1 and offering #2 - Who’s niqaeli, you might ask? Among many other things, she’s a friend of mine with a biology degree and she helps me with worldbuilding on the regular. Any handwave nonsense is on me; she’s terrific at logicking through unhinged sci-fantasy/superhero/etc premises so I can decide how much handwave is on the menu. A++, endorse wholeheartedly; of more weight, she’s also endorsed by Arkady Martine and Christopher Rice! :D

1-Hour Copyedit Ride Along with Mia Tsai - I had the intense pleasure of reading Mia’s science fantasy The Memory Hunters (Erewhon Books, 2025) in draft. Ever wonder what a professional copyedit process looks like, demonstrated on up to 20 manuscript pages of your work? Here’s your chance!

[miraclerizuin]

30 Days of Pride Books (with @draconiclore)

Day 23: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

If you're up for some complex worldbuilding and military sci-fi, Ninefox Gambit might be the tangled web of explosions intrigue for you.

[deuceofgears]

Ninefoxery update

FYI since it's now public: my publisher for Machineries of Empire, Solaris Books, has been acquired by Profile Books. Which is very exciting! but also inherently adds some wobbly uncertainty just because we are all new to each other. Solaris's editorial team remains intact. As far as I know, the planned reissue of Machineries in print format is also intact. (The delay in reprint was due to negotiations over their renewing the license, which had a fixed term rather than life of copyright.)

Ninefoxery plans/thoughts in a prose fiction direction are on hold while everything's shaking out, which is fine because my other publisher (Saga Press, for Code and Codex forthcoming October 2026 in the USA) is gearing up for marketing on that book and I'm still buried under orchestration homework. :p

(I still want to reboot Ninefoxery AU as hard milsf abandoned underdog mecha squad fights their way up to BIG SPACE FLEET BATTLES. I was telling a friend that I proposed a squad consisting of: Cheris, Jedao, Kujen, Mikodez, and Khiaz. (AU, dammit.) Hilariously, in an infantry battle setting, Kujen is the least deadly character of the lot. Cheris is probably the most annoyed but in my head poor Cheris is always the most annoyed. I may write it anyway and file off the goddamn serial numbers, but as long as the WIP is lurking quietly on my HD, it's not like anyone can stop me. I've been sitting here on dumbass hard science military tactics ideas dyyyyying to write crunchy battle tactics/strategy/logistics even if no one wants to read crunchy sf battles!)

(Zerowriter Ink says HOWDY and is ready for WRITING ADVENTURES!)

[deuceofgears]

well, it's been a (calendrical) minute

I have been away from my own dang newsletter for ~4 mos. (illness + school) but here it is! I despise inbox clutter; you can subscribe for (infrequent) updates on Ninefoxery + the Candle Arc animatic/animation in early production, but you can also not subscribe and just visit the archive. I don't care, you do you! I do have a question re: future Ninefoxeries in the newsletter if anyone feels like emailing me opinions though. :3

https://buttondown.com/deuceofgears/archive/four-months-away/

Candle Arc animatic introduction/proof of concept (Jedao then Cheris then SPACESHIPS by way of ANGRY GOOSE, a.k.a. "The entire plot of Ninefox Gambit in 12 seconds")

"In this newsletter: Candle Arc status report, a music teaser, a Ninefoxy WIP (text-based interactive fiction), Ninefox Tarot WIP, random hobby endeavors, and what’s next - help me decide!"

'Scuse, I have practice animation scoring to get back to work on for school. /o\

[invariant-ice]

if any of the factions are responsible for tourism, it's gotta be the andan