In which we host Yoon Ha Lee talking about Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, which is out next week on June 13. You Were Watching What on TV, Cheris? Yoon Ha Lee One of the most entertaining things I’ve gotten to do in the background worldbuilding for the hexarchate is its popular culture. For example, in Ninefox Gambit, my heroine Cheris spends her free time watching crackalicious TV shows (“dramas”). In Raven Stratagem, one of the Kel recalls a classmate who used to read trashy adventures involving “dungeon-crawling” in the bowels of the campus. And it also reveals that Jedao’s mom used to like reading equally trashy sci-fi novels involving survivalists and tentacled monsters from outer space. Just because she’s a science fantasy character doesn’t mean she can’t like sci-fi, right? I have seen people remarking on how ridiculous these stories sound. On the one hand, sure; I usually constructed the examples to be humorous. I was trolling when I mentioned a “dolphin chorale” in one of the dramas that Cheris watches. If you really want to know, I was inspired by that one character in the Eyeshield 21 anime whose special move is symbolized by a galloping mustang or […]