Yoon Ha Lee goes out of his way to point out a character’s obsession with spiced pickles. There’s a servitor (robot) obsessed with editing their own versions of cheesy space soap operas. There’s math that informs military formations which triggers magic, centuries-old undead Generals, and a cat named after one said General. There’s also a political system that runs off of civilians observing everyday rituals and performances. There are ideas in these books to boot, ideas introduced in the final installment that Lee barely has time to develop. But perhaps most importantly, Lee brings attention to how empires and political systems run on small, but commonly-enacted behaviors which knit together to form our social fabric. These books were so idiosyncratic and particular. Yet they simultaneously and fundamentally call the entire political order, the rules of the game in which the players act, into question. The Machineries of Empire is simultaneously idiosyncratic and all-encompassing; both wildly imaginative and alien while insidiously charming and relatable; strangely particular yet somehow universally identifiable; breathtakingly odd at times, yet strikingly familiar at a crucial juncture. Lee is interested in how the machineries of empire are not limited to intergalactic warships or reality-warping bombs, but the tiniest, seemingly-insignificant social observances; the smallest particularity. These books rule.
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