Title:

The Dragonfly Gambit

Author:

A. D. Sui

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

May 7, 2026

hen George Lucas was making Star Wars, he looked at footage of WWII dogfights for inspiration of how his spaceships should fight. This is why the X-wing and Tie fighters bank and turn in space, trying to fly directly behind their opponent so that their guns line up with their target. It makes for exciting visuals, but it is a ridiculous depiction of how space battles will be fought (if they ever are - hopefully not!) Sui falls for the Star Wars depiction when she describes her space-fighters engaging in deep space; the result is an unbelievable story in a mercifully short novella.

The protaganist of The Dragonfly Gambit is Inez Kato, a former fighter pilot for the empire. Despite the fact that her home planet of Oran was reduced to molten slag by the empire, Kato was training to be a pilot in their war against the rebellious solar systems in a galactic civil war. However, a crash during a training exercise has left Kato permanently disabled with a crippled shoulder. Her fellow refuge from the molten planet, Kaya, has now assumed the role as best fighter pilot in the empire's service. Kato is bitter about the outcome and plots revenge.

The ruler of the galactic empire is The Third Daughter, Ennis Rezal. The previous two daughters have perished, and now it is up to Rezal to crush the rebellion and restore the galactic peace. Implausibly, Rezal rules the empire while living on a spaceship near the frontlines. Even more unbelievably, Rezal flies fighters sometimes. Imagine FDR trying to lead the USA during WWII from an airbase in England, and then extrapolate to the unlikely image of Rezal running a galactic empire while dealing with trivialities about fighter pilots on one particular spaceship in one particular fleet.

The fighter pilots are human; they only score hits on less than 40% of the shots they take. Inez Kato takes advantage of this statistic to enact her revenge - she will install neural enhancers on the pilots that will allow them to shoot straight. However, the neural enhancers will actually disable the fighter pilots, and this will result in the entire galactic empire collapsing. Yes, the loss of a few hundred (at most) fighter pilots in a single fleet in a galactic armada will result in the complete rout of the empire's forces! It seemed preposterous to me. Why don't the empire's advanced space-fighters have AI auto-targeting weapon systems that never miss?

There are basically just four characters in the novelette - Inez Kato, the Third Daughter, the celebrated fighter pilot Kaya, and the Intelligence Officer Captain Shay, who is also coincidentally from the slagged planet of Oran. Limiting the story to four characters on a single spaceship makes the whole narrative seem small. This doesn't seem like a plot that could have consequences across the galaxy, it seems like a tiff that might disable one ship in the empire's fleet.

Kato is not a likeable character; I certainly wasn't hoping her secret Dragonfly Gambit would succeed in destroying the evil empire. The brilliant, beautiful Third Daughter is supposed to be sexy and whip-smart, able to grasp subtleties in fighter schematics with just a glance, but I could not believe that she was actually running an empire. Kaya is portrayed as the best fighter pilot in the entire empire, but accidentally fires torpedoes at the Third Daughter during a fighter-flying game?? None of this story felt believable to me.

A carrier sized hostile exits the gate to threaten the Third Daughter's spaceship."At the center, a three dimensional hologram of the first one-hundred kilometers of flight space hovers right above its table projector." One-hundred kilometers?? At the speed spaceships move, 100 kilometers of space would be crossed in a fraction of a second!

Rezal and Kato are making out in a room with a dramatic view of outer space: "Rezal rests her forehead along the glass, her fingers trail downwards, tracing the outlines of galaxies and nebulous clusters dozens of light years away." There a multiple galaxies and nebulae just dozens of light years away?? Interesting, considering that the Milky Way alone is 100,000 light years across.

This was the first story by A. D. Sui that I have read, and it will also be my last. It was a disappointing read.