DNF at 80 pages. I gave the first three stories a try then decided they didn't tickle my fancy enough to continue. The first story I liked, but at the end felt I had missed something to make the ending matter. The second story almost said something important. The third story felt like something better suited to novel-length. I'd try this author again, but won't finish this collection.

"Ghostweight" was the standout for me, 4.5 stars, excellent. You can (and should) read it here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lee_0... You will also find links to 8 other Lee shorts there, including "The Battle of Candle Arc", General Jedao's great victory against overwhelming odds, referred to often in his first 2 novels. I should reread it.The rest of the collection had its up and downs for me, and my 2013 notes found Lee a promising writer, but the collection a bit disappointing. But you ca...

If I have a complaint with this collection, it's that it makes me feel less smart than when I started. Lee has a very wide thinking range indeed. The Shuos Jedao story is exceptional, not least because it re-frames a real battle from Korea's history. The others were uneven, but the bright flame of Lee's imagination kept me fluttering around. It will probably help if you have already read some or all of the Ninefox Gambit series. I found them a tad more accessible, and as such good preparation fo...

I read most, but not all, of the stories in this collection, and since I very much enjoyed the stories I read, I assume I'd enjoy the ones I didn't read as well. The reason I didn't read all of them was because the tone, theme, and plot of the ones I did read created an overall flavor that's very strong and particular and more something that I want to savor in small doses than at length, especially when the at-length is continually starting over with new characters. They're like very rich desser...

Conservation of Shadows is my favorite short story collection.On the surface, this is about beautiful sci-fantasy universes with complex magic systems - from spaceships tuned with music to quantum chess battles, from shadow magic to mythological characters coming to life from paper - and beautiful, terrifying technology, which includes shadow ink, killer stardrives, flying war-kites, guns that can erase a person's ancestry, books that grow teeth.But Conservation of Shadows is so much more than t...

Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee is a terrifying collection of short stories to review. The stories themselves are rarely scary in the traditional sense, but their individual complexity and astonishing level of variety make this an impossible book to encompass in just a few paragraphs.It’s not that there aren’t any hooks or approaches; it’s more that there is such a bewildering number of them that, as a reader or reviewer, you feel somewhat like you’ve wandered onto a hitherto undiscovered...

Lee writes the kind of speculative fiction that incorporates abstraction and math, resulting in prose that is as contemplative and challenging as poetry. But what makes the stories work is the astounding imagery that accompanies his meditations on revenge, fate, colonialism, and other weighty themes. He writes evocatively about intergalactic war-kites, fatal music, paper doll warriors. One story takes on Star Trek’s famous Kobayashi Maru scenario and turns it on its head. The writing evokes bare...

I've been reading this collection very slowly to appreciate its beauty: intricate worldbuilding, myth-like quality to high fantasy plots, characters who may exist just for the duration of a short story, but their existence is powerful and lingers. And, most importantly, the lyricism and aesthetic side to sciences and mathematics; Lee knows these are emotional, aesthetic endeavors, and pours his fondness for them onto the pages. Between Conservation of Shadows and Machineries of Empire, I think I...

When checking out the works of an authors unknown to you, it's usually best, or, at least, safer, to go for a stand-alone novel or a collection of short-stories. In this case, I went for 'Conservation of Shadows', a book that was (is?) hard to get on European soil. Luckily, an American supplier of the Belgian bookshop Sterling Books (Brussels) had a copy in stock. This first short-story collection contains sixteen of Lee's stories. While the majority was published previously in magazines like Be...

This is a totally solid short story collection, but not all the stories resonated for me. I like Yoon Ha Lee's work a lot, and this is a much easier entry point than Ninefox Gambit, so I still recommend it. Common themes include mathematics- and music-based magic, tactical warfare in space, and weird, creepy twists. My favorite stories were "Swanwatch", "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain", "Iseul's Lexicon", and "The Battle of Candle Arc".

Seriously blown away by the stories in Conservation of Shadows. Subtle & beautiful! Never obvious! Weird and spacetastic and elliptical. Kick-ass writing.

...As usual, I've had a lot of trouble writing this review. It took me well over a week, where I usually do a draft in one day and clean it up the second. Short story collections are a pain to review but Conservation of Shadows was even more difficult than usual. Lee writes very complex stories. He packs a lot into a few pages and often steps outside the western cultural framework. He makes me work pretty hard and I'm sure I missed quite a bit. In fact, without the story notes I might very well

Yoon Ha Lee sets the bar pretty high with her opening lines: It is not true that the dead cannot be folded. Square becomes kite becomes swan; history becomes rumor becomes song. Even the act of remembrance creases the truth. But "Ghostweight," the story this paragraph begins, left me cold. So did about half of the tales in Conservation of Shadows. Don't get me wrong; they're all beautifully written, well-paced stories full of unpredictable imagery, careful to linger no longer than necessary. B...

(Interest: I've known Yoon on the Internet for years, through interactive fiction forums and such.)Despite the above, I have not read most of her stories, because I don't read many short stories. (Just not in the habit.) Thus I have suddenly been smacked with a decade's worth all at once! Which turns out to be a good thing.This book is full of... it's easy to say "Asian-flavored". The introduction (by Aliette de Bodard) says "Asian-inspired". Both are thready generalizations. The science fiction...

Conservation of Shadows begins and ends with contradiction. The first sentence of its first story, "Ghostweight," tells us that "It is not true that the dead cannot be folded." Already the reader is thrown a little off-balance—whoever said the dead couldn't be folded in the first place? And as the collection's final, titular story reminds us, "There is no conservation of shadows." As light pours in, shadows are banished—but darkness elsewhere does not become more intense as a result.By the time

A collection of sf and fantasy stories., many inspired by physics concepts, Asian history, and questions about ethics in warfare."Ghostweight." Lisse was only a child when her planet was scoured by the Imperium's mercenaries. She devoted herself to rising through the ranks of the Imperium until she was in position to steal one of the mercenaries' war-kites, and embarks on a mission of revenge. (view spoiler)[After many successful scourings of Imperial martial targets, she makes a horrifying disc...

Conservationof Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee's collection of short stories, is a treat in every way. Lee's voice is a unique one, his rich and evocative prose telling stories synesthetic in their blending of the diverse languages and symbologies of words, music, mathematics and programming. There is an otherworldliness to his stories, but not the kind of otherworldliness one is accustomed to find in stories of science fiction or fantasy. It is not just the story itself that is in another world, but the v...

It was fascinating to see the evolution of the themes that recur in Lee's writing, and to see their earliest iterations. Nonetheless, I found some of the stories difficult to get into, perhaps because of how much they expected me to fill in the blanks at times, or perhaps because of the intricate worldbuilding drawing on sciences I have little knowledge about - music, physics, mathematics. Once the narrative dove into explanations of these, I'd re-read sentences and emerge still uncertain what t...

Honestly, I didn't expect it to be so good, but this is possibly the best book I've read this year.First sentence is there to catch attention of the reader, to show how good is the book. The first sentence of Conservation of Shadows?It is not true that the dead cannot be folded.What more can you want?

Ghostweight: 3.5 stars The Shadow Postulates: 4 starsThe Bones of Giants: 4.5 starsBetween Two Dragons: 3.5 stars Swanwatch: 4.5 stars Effigy Nights: 3.75 starsFlower, mercy, needle, chain: 2.5 starsIseul’s Lexicon: 5 starsCounting the shapes: 2.75 starsBlue ink: 3.25 starsThe battle of candle arc: 4.25 stars (we stan Jedao ⭐️) A vector alphabet of interstellar travel: 3.5 starsThe unstrung zither: 4.5 starsThe black abacus: 3 starsThe book of locked doors: 5 starsConservation of shadows: 3 star...