Gideon the Ninth

Oh my GOD did I love this book! I didn't head into it with very high hopes even, as I've been let down by highly rated and recommended books before. While initially I was a little put off at some of the Marvel-movie-esque dialogue from the protagonist, I slowly settled into loving every bit of every single character written in this universe. To the point where "turbo cancer" absolutely took me out in the best way.

Muir has done an incredible job at crafting both an incredibly in-depth world and magic system. With such beautiful and ornate descriptions let you picture every single thing in remarkable clarity. As I mentioned prior, she's also crafted so many well rounded and intriguing characters that I wanted to know more about every. single. one of them. Even the assholes. I find most authors are either good at building worlds or building characters, Muir has shown to be so amazing at both I wouldn't be surprised at all if she was two people in one body!

I'm immediately moving on to the next in the series because I cannot bear to be away from this world and the characters a day longer.

I've seen a lot of people raving about this and I was curious to try it, so was glad when it came up as a text for a book club I'm in. Having now finished it, I can see why some people really love it, but it's not really for me. It plunges you straight into the universe and it's overwhelming and bewildering for a long time as there's nothing too familiar to ground yourself on and work out what's going on. It's very stylised, with a strong authorial voice, which I don't mind, but information is doled out very slowly, both to the characters and the reader, so it does feel like wandering around in the dark a lot. The ending does reveal a lot of things that help to make sense of what's gone on before, but you need to cling on in faith that it's going to be revealed when the time goes along, and I'm still not sure the rest of the universe here makes too much sense. I may read the rest of the series, but I'm not urgently arranging to get hold of them.

From a universe where necromancy abounds, comes Gideon the Ninth.Her home planet, the Ninth Planet, holds trials to determine who will inherit unimaginable power.

As the heir of the Ninth and the strongest necromancer on the planet, Harrow needs... a sword. Luckily, Gideon knows the sword.

Since they can remember, Gideon and Harrow have hated each other.

The moment Harrow dangles freedom in front of Gideon, Gideon knows she will have to follow through with the plan... even to the very end.

There’s just something about this book that doesn’t work for me. The first time I tried it, I wasn’t able to get into it. My second attempt was more challenging, but I got through it.

It is because of Gideon herself and the style of the book that I did not enjoy it. She sounded like she was trying way too complicated to be edgy and cool. I found the other characters to be one-dimensional - even Harrow doesn’t get much development until the end of the book. Oh, and if you are seeking a good lesbian romance, you will be disappointed. There’s nothing romantic about it.

The second problem was that it felt aimless. The start of the series seemed promising, and for a while it did. However, once it became apparent, it was going to be a pointless tournament arc with murder; I lost interest. There are no rules, only vague objectives, and it is impossible to follow the person solving the puzzle, so things just sort of... happen. The characters and style didn’t appeal to me, which would have been fine if I enjoyed it.

The third problem, I also found the world building to be vague. There was a lot of aesthetic detail on, with skeletons and bones and locked doors everywhere. Beyond that, it was hollow. Despite the brief spaceship journey at the beginning, it is not science fiction, rather fantasy.

What is the purpose of the Emperor? Are there any reasons becoming his servant is so desirable? Where do the other planets stand? What is the purpose of necromancy?

I’m not sure whether I’m going to continue.

You can also find this review on my blog: Click here

That I'm writing a review is a positive thing. I liked this book. But while there were things I liked, there we other things that bugged me. I've marked none of this as "spoiler" because I'm not talking plot, but I discuss some things about characters and story points. Stop reading if you don't want to know any details — critical or not.

THE COVER

The cover — probably one of the best cover art pieces I've seen in a long time — is gorgeous! And it's representative of the story, which I really appreciate. For the life of me, I can't find any reference to Tommy Arnold in the book, which makes me sad. He did a phenomenal job on this and the Harrow the Ninth cover too.

However, the blurb on the front "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" is somewhat disingenuous. The lesbianism consists entirely of Gideon saying "she's hot" a few times or getting angsty at seeing a little skin. (And she's not even a necromancer.) I wasn't necessarily looking forward to lesbian sex, but it appears Tor decided to add this blurb to the cover simply for shock value alone. I don't think the concept of lesbianism really came from the author.

Would I call this "epic" as the cover describes? Not really. Epics are sweeping and broad. Here, "epic" is used to mean "a handful of people from eight planets are summoned to the first planet". There is history and a background to all of this, but it's not explored very much.

THE WRITING

This is [a:Tamsyn Muir|6876324|Tamsyn Muir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1543423040p2/6876324.jpg]'s debut novel and for the most part, her writing is engaging and the storyline is well laid. But I did have a few problems with parts of it.

The main character Gideon is 18, but she has the brashness and smart aleckyness of someone a few years younger. That's fine. Much of her dialog and attitude reflects that. It's what makes Gideon Gideon.

But a lot of the writing itself has that same quality. Assuming the story takes place in the distant future (our distant future?), terms like "pizza face", "DOA", "a whole lotta nope" are really out of place. Does Gideon know what pizza is? Doesn't seem so based on the foods she's described, yet she uses the term once. Muir seems to include a lot of immature phrasing like that throughout the book and every time it made me wince because I suddenly felt I was reading an immature teenager's writing. It's there for shock and humor, but really displaced.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

I'm trying to understand why the supplemental material at the end of the book wasn't simply incorporated into the book itself.

Some of it contains the histories of the characters, which would've been useful while reading not afterward. Most of the peripheral characters remained flat and two-dimensional. And the character pronunciations could've been added to the Dramatis Personae at the beginning instead of telling us after the fact how the author intends names should be pronounced. At least I had most of those right without referencing the guide.

If the author had chosen to spend time world-building, then this material might be interesting background information. But there was no world-building. Or sweeping character-building for that matter. There were so many characters and events, there simply wasn't time. But I did appreciate allowing Gideon to make direct connections with many of the characters to at least get to know them better.

My rating for Gideon the Ninth was four stars. Had there been more depth to Gideon or attention to the world Muir created, it could've easily been five stars.