User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
ARC provided by Tor in exchange for an honest review. “The more you struggle against the Ninth, Nav, the deeper it takes you; the louder you curse it, the louder they’ll have you scream.”
Hi, my name is Melanie, and this was a really hard review to write for many reasons. First, I think I have hyped this book for all of 2019, and I have been very vocal about it being my favorite book of the year, and the best debut I’ve ever had the privilege of reading. Next, how do you write a review on the book of your heart? The book that feels like it was crafted for you? The book that has lit up the darkest places of your soul? It’s hard, friends. Truly. Lastly, I know nothing I say here will do this book justice. But I suppose I should give it a try regardless, aye?
Gideon the Ninth is a book about a swordfighter named Gideon who is my favorite literary character of all time. Gideon is so witty, so funny, so charming, and such a thorn in Harrowhark’s side. Harrowhark is a necromancer, while also being the main ruler of the Ninth’s planet. Both of these characters are harboring a few secrets of their own, but they are both so unsure of their pasts and their futures for so very many reasons.
That is, until one day the Emperor has invited all eight necromancer heirs, from all eight loyal Houses, to compete in unknown trails to possibly ascend into something that will make them immortal, but the costs of losing can very well be their lives. No necromancer can compete without a skilled cavalier by their side, and Harrowhark has no choice but to get Gideon to help her and save the future of the Ninth House.
“You are the honoured heirs and guardians of the eight Houses. Great duties await you. If you do not find yourself a galaxy, it is not so bad to find yourself a star, nor to have the Emperor know that the both of you attempted this great ordeal.”
But once Gideon and Harrowhark arrive on the Emperor’s planet, they soon realize that the tasks are going to be much more mysterious and much more difficult than anyone could have predicted. Especially when cavaliers and necromancers from the other houses start getting murdered. Gideon is not only tasked to help Harrowhark, she also has to ensure that she keeps breathing herself, while also trying to figure out who is doing the unspeakable things to other competitors.
Tamsyn then leads us on this beautiful adventure, where twist after twist occurs so seamlessly that you can’t help but feel completely enthralled. The writing is so beautiful, so intelligent, and so very impressive. And the way the entire story is told is so very transportive! I mean, this book has one of the scariest settings I’ve read all year, but I felt like I was right there battling for my life, with a goofy smile on my face. And the atmosphere and constant chill while reading? It’s unparalleled and truly an experience like no other.
“Maybe it’s that I find the idea comforting . . . that thousands of years after you’re gone . . . is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.”
I love this book for many reasons, but I also love it because it’s over the top, and has so many one-liners, and it’s painfully romantic, and the girl gets the girl at the end. And it’s what’s I’ve been waiting my whole reading life for. This is a better, and way more unique, and 100% more impressive version of what straight, white dudes have been publishing in SFF forever. I keep seeing people say that they feel this book is too confusing, the characters too over the top, and the world too complex, but I just don’t feel that way at all. This is the story my sapphic loving heart has been searching for in epic fantasy my whole life.
Gideon the Ninth is my queer, literary loving heart’s anthem, and I plan to play it on repeat forever.
This book has the best enemies to lovers romance I’ve ever read in all of my years. Yeah, you read that right. In my whole freaking life, this is my favorite. I’m talking OTP for the rest of my days. I didn’t exist before this ship sailed in this first book. And this book also has such a central theme of trust, and what it means to put your trust in another. Also, what it means to be trustful, and the privilege of having someone put their trust in you, unconditionally. And this book also has an amazing discussion on power dynamics and imbalances, and how important it is to be aware of these things while putting your trust in yourself and in someone else, simultaneously.
“You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”
Overall, this really just felt like the book I’ve been waiting my own personal eternity for. This felt like the book of my dreams and my hopes. All I want is ownvoices queer books, with f/f relationships, with cutthroat girls putting themselves first, but allowing themselves to be vulnerable enough to maybe let someone else get to see a softer side of them. Almost like I’ve been reviewing books for five years now, preparing myself to read and review
Gideon the Ninth, even though I know no word combination or sentence structure I could ever come up with could do it justice for this story. Basically, I know this book isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you feel like you have similar reading taste to me, then I implore you to give this one a try. I mean, if the tagline “Lesbian Necromancers in Space” isn’t going to sell you, hopefully my emotional, bleeding heart self can. This book means everything to me, and I hope you enjoy if you pick it up.
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The quotes above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.Content and Trigger Warnings: graphic violence, gore, murder, mass murder, human sacrifice, many conversations about suicide, death, death of children, talk of depression, grief depiction, trauma depiction, loss of a loved one, lots of blood depiction, self-harm to get blood, and mentions of cancer.
Also, I was so blessed, and I was able to meet Tamsyn at BookExpo and she is honestly the sweetest necromancer in the world, and she truly made my entire convention! 🖤⚔️
Rating: really liked it
“
What greater debt could be accrued than that of being brought up?” There’s an invisible collar rested around Gideon Nav’s throat, its leash leading back to the Ninth House, the claws of its heir fastened tight in her flesh.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the sole daughter and secret ruler of the Ninth (and Gideon Nav’s executioner by increment), wore her destiny like a noose. She kept the frailty of her house guarded, locked-down, putting up a masterly front, but a chance at competing for the prestigous role of Lyctor is the only way to save the Ninth from careening into a fearful darkness. It was a last resort, and one the necromancer couldn’t consider without Gideon Nav’s wiliness to fill the role of her cavalier.
Freedom stood unshackled in the bloodied light of Harrow’s coercive offer, and Gideon felt its lure like a hook behind her heart. She would serve as Harrow’s bodyguard in the trials, and then flit out the Ninth like a loosed bird. Gideon would no longer waste the years of her life as an outsider, inside; doomed to grim survival in a world that wasn’t her own.
But once summoned to the decaying Canaan House where the trials are held, the heirs of the nine houses find themselves confounded, given only the barest scrapings of information about the competition, tied to a stake and baited before they embarked on the wretched business of being murdered one by one. Gideon and Harrow must fight back against the shadowy machinations of those who wished to sever their existence from the world…before the Canaan House becomes a slaughter-yard.
The more you struggle against the Ninth, Nav, the deeper it takes you; the louder you curse it, the louder they’ll have you scream.
You don’t really know how high your hopes have been until you watch them plummeting earthward, and you grappling around in the wreckage.
Gideon the Ninth snagged at my attention, and I was beguiled by the promise of an atmospheric, Gothic-flavored chiller, packed with catacombs and sarcophagi, resurrections and revelations, fantasy and horror. Unfortunately, the novel’s allure faded into the sky unmarked within the first few chapters.
Gideon the Ninth gets off to an uneven start. We are immediately faced with thickets of unexplained jargon so dense it was difficult to find the other side, and it was like guttering around in the dark, with ink poured in your eyes. For a while, I waited for the dangling threads and wandering pieces of the story to be shepherded into a straight line, but my continuous attempts at making sense of
Gideon the Ninth became abortive things.
For one, the worldbuilding is thin. The novel is not particularly cogent, or focused, or informative about the actual setting, and I was confused, as though I’d walked in on the middle of the wrong movie. The explanation of the different planets and the different castes and people who inhabit them is blurred to insignificance. Some micro-flaws in the logic also feel sloppy; there are copious pop-culture references (to Mean Girls and The Office) but, oddly, some characters don’t even know what a sink is.
It’s not until a little over halfway through—when the many strands of the narrative are held together by the unfolding closed-circle mystery—that my interest begun to stir again, feebly. The whodunit becomes the driving force of the novel, with conflicts coming to a head and silent tensions finally boiling over. What seemed at first to be a random patchwork coalesces into a grander, madder pattern, and I felt like a lost sailor suddenly handed a compass. If
Gideon the Ninth had stuck to this relatively straightforward plot from the beginning, it would have made for a solid, winning read. But the plot comes too late, and by then, I was so bored I barely managed to squint the words into focus.
To the author’s credit, they write Gideon’s inner and outer dialogue with flair, but mostly skimp on showing in favor of telling. Gideon’s voice feels conspicuously flat at points, particularly in her stilted banter (or maybe her sense of humor just doesn’t jell well with mine), and in her contribution to the book’s larger arguments, which are very few. As Gideon and Harrow’s journey becomes stranger, so does the novel’s voluminous cast of characters, most of whom only show up when most convenient, their personal conflicts relatively slight. Not that these characters aren't arresting enough to warrant books of their own, because they are. Unfortunately, that only underscores how really underdeveloped Gideon is.
What saves the book, however, is the ultimate, bloodcurdling conclusion. I’m also a sucker for questionable relationships with dynamics that make the reader unable to shake off a flutter of moral unease, and this book knew just which buttons to push. Harrow and Gideon’s relationship is a pickled thing, as though it’d been preserved in vinegar, only to be pulled out to act as garnish to their artfully plated arrangement to be Necromancer and Cavalier. The tension between them is a constantly low-simmering fire—one errant breath of wind could fan it—and I snatched hungrily at those scattered moments between them.
Gideon the Ninth was pitched to me as “queer necromancers in space”, giving me a bellyful of false hope. It’s not exactly an inaccurate claim—just rather…
flimsy. There are necromancers, Gideon is most definitely queer, the space part leaves much to be desired…still I wish I haven’t rested my expectations upon such a beguiling premise.
Rating: really liked it
I am late in reviewing this, as I finished it over a year ago, but it's a sign of the book's strength that I am still thinking about it! Muir has created a galactic empire upheld by necromancy: Nine houses, each of which governs it own world and specializes in its own form of death magic, all bound together by the Emperor, the immortal Necrolord Prime and his band of super-powerful, undying "necrosaints" -- the Lyctors.
The emperor has held power for ten thousand years, but despite his godlike abilities, all is not well in his galactic death cult. Wars are being waged against faraway enemies. Battles are being lost. Attrition is high. Then a strange call goes out from the First House, the emperor's own: We need more Lyctors. Each house is invited to send their heir apparent and cavalier (elite bodyguard) to the First House for a set of mysterious trials. Those who survive and prove themselves worthy will ascend to Lyctorhood, gaining immortality and powers almost equal to the emperor himself. A hard invitation to refuse, right?
Meanwhile, in the gloomy Ninth House, Gideon Nav wants to run away from her horrible life. She has no one in the dreary world of the Ninth, where undead skeletons are much more common than living folk and the average age of the nuns and priests who guard the Locked Tomb is about 85. The only other person Gideon's age is the heir apparent, the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark, who treats Gideon like a personal whipping post. When the Emperor's call goes out, however, the two are forced to work together. Harrow is the heir and the best necromancer on the planet, adept at crafting with the bones of the dead. Gideon is the best sword-fighter, especially since the house's actual cavalier fled to planet. The two young women strike a bargain: If Gideon pretends to be Harrow's cavalier and goes to the First House trials, Harrow will grant her her freedom, assuming Harrow is able to become a Lyctor and save the honor of her dying home world.
What follows is part Dune (dueling royal houses in space), part Nico di Angelo (snarky queer death demigods) and part Agatha Christie locked-room mystery (Locked Tomb mystery?). Gideon and Harrow have to learn to work together, or at least not kill each other, while all around them in the creepy halls and secret laboratories of the First House, people start disappearing . . . The secret to becoming a Lyctor might be worse than any of them ever imagined.
Muir's writing is a sheer delight, sparkling with zinger dialogue and bone-dry humor. Gideon is just my kind of narrator: irreverent, irrepressible, and lovably grumpy. Her relationship with Harrow is wonderfully depicted: with frenemies like this, who needs . . . uh, frenemies? There are a lot of characters to keep up with once we reach the First House, and the story unfolds in multiple layers that can be a challenge to track, but wow, the pay-off! Once you hit those last hundred pages, I defy you to set this story down. Fortunately, this is the first book in a trilogy, and I can't wait to see what happens in the follow-up Harrow the Ninth!
Rating: really liked it
“Maybe it’s that I find the idea comforting . . . that thousands of years after you’re gone . . . is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.”
Ugh, I wish I hadn't taken so long to sit down and write a review of this. I prefer writing a review when everything is fresh in my mind, but I do actually have things I want to say about this
dark, dense, totally unique fantasy.One thing I think it might be helpful to know when starting this book is: you're going to just have to make peace with not totally "getting" it for a while. If you're anything like me, when you read something you don't really understand, you read it again and again until it makes sense. In my experience this can lead to book slumps, and I just don't think it's that helpful when it comes to Gideon the Ninth. Things get painted in over the course of the whole novel, so just accepting I didn't understand it at first made it much more palatable.
Because this world is dense and complex and, with a little patience, absolutely fascinating. Nobody can accuse Muir of a lack of imagination. This surely has to be one of the most detailed and unique necromancer fantasies ever written (though connoisseurs of that niche might be able to tell me different). In this world, the Emperor has a representative of each of the nine houses (with their accompanying cavalier) compete in a series of weird and dangerous trials in order to determine those most worthy of being a servant of the Resurrection, complete with power and immortality.
The plot is simple; the world-building and writing are anything but. However, more than either of those,
what made this book shine so so much for me was Gideon. Well, really, a number of the characters, but mostly Gideon. How to explain her... She's a snarky lovable badass but with none of the standard heroine, fits-a-perfect-mold kind of badassery that I've grown so tired of. She's just really cool and funny. And somehow relatable, even though I can honestly say I've never been a swordswoman in space (no, really).
Honestly, as a character she really stands out as someone unique. Which is saying a lot because I've read a ton of fantasy books and most of them are obviously recycling characters at this point. Here, working through the author's challenging prose and world-building was easier because I cared so much about Gideon. This book really proves how much characters make or break a book. Without Gideon, I am sure this would have gone to my mental "not for me" pile.
Muir's ending hit me in the feels, too. The book surprised me by having a bunch of sad and sweet moments amid the darkness. I'm almost afraid to read Harrow the Ninth, but hell am I going to.
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Rating: really liked it
“One flesh, one end, bitch.”
I genuinely think about this book all the time, and I just need to say that this is the most upset I’ve been by an ending to a book in several years. When I completed it I started yelling audibly and my roommate, who was also awake, I believe may have become genuinely concerned for my sanity.
Gideon the Ninth looked at me and said I could make her worse, and then it did, and it’s incurable. The gay people at my college own four collective copies of this and we pass it around to first years like a mini cult indoctrination and you now the worst part? It works.
I cannot talk about the things about this book that make me genuinely crazy without getting into spoilers, so here is my short pitch: Lesbian necromancers in space, except the space part isn’t that relevant. In reality, it’s a And-Then-There-Were-None-esque murder mystery in which the two main characters are a buff lesbian with a sword and the most fucked up woman you have ever seen in your life. You will not solve the murder mystery. Gideon, the main character, makes the worst puns I have ever heard and it’s fantastic. I cannot even begin to explain how compelled I am by Harrow. No one in this book can be normal for more than ten seconds at a time. At least one meme will be quoted per book. I have never read anything more homoerotic in my life than the pool scene. I laughed. I also cried a lot. You should read it.
Here are a few more detailed thoughts that I can give: Tamsyn Muir is genuinely fantastic at crafting a building narrative. You do not know how invested you are in
Gideon the Ninth until the hits start coming, and by then Muir is ready to hit you with a punch. The first half is solid and interesting, but the last hundred pages are fully the best hundred pages of any book I have read in my life. (And it helps that her action writing is fantastic.)
The main characters and side characters alike are so interesting. Harrow has the single most compelling backstory of any character I have had the delight of reading about. She has so many problems and I love her. Some highlights of the wider cast include Judith of the Second House; Ianthe and Coronabeth, incredibly abnormal twin heirs to the Third House; Palamedes and Camilla of the Sixth House, the latter of whom is honestly the most normal person in this book; and Dulcinea and Protesilaus, also normal people of the Seventh House. I am also obsessed with Gideon because she has just… the funniest narrative voice. Some examples?
“I need to be inside you,” Harrowhark bellowed over the din.
“Okay, you’re not even trying,” said Gideon.
“Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?”
Speaking of which I am. Embarrassingly invested. In the dynamic between Gideon and Harrowhark. I think about them all the time, by which I mean I’ve spent several days of my life consumed by thinking about them. I cannot say anything else at this time for legal reasons but just now that as if we are ever speaking I am pretending to be invested in our conversation but I am actually thinking about Gideon and Harrow.
___
SPOILER SECTION
gay people: (view spoiler)
[“I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”
Okay. Listen. I think there might be something wrong with me but this dynamic genuinely kills me. The desire in my heart for them to tenderly kiss on the lips is like a physical urge it’s tearing me apart. This might have been my joker origin story. (hide spoiler)]about harrow: (view spoiler)
[I think “born a war crime” is a genuinely fascinating allegory for childhood trauma. Harrow has essentially been carrying the guilt for seventeen years of knowing her existence means the death of 200 innocents, and she blames herself totally and utterly, but she does not have a choice in that. (hide spoiler)]the twists: (view spoiler)
[The true nature of lyctors genuinely haunts me I think about that reveal all the time. And also Dulcinea being Cytherea is truly a banger. I love Ianthe being duplicitous, I love how many moving parts there are to this book, I love that you don’t really suspect the right people and when you do it’s never for the right things. (hide spoiler)]spoilers for harrow the ninth: (view spoiler)
[“I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?”
HNNNG I just noticed the foreshadowing of this. Harrow I don’t know how to tell you this but in the next book she is going to fully on page say that all she ever wanted you to do was eat her. which is by the way one of the absolute craziest lines I’ve ever read in my life I cannot stop thinking about it. (hide spoiler)]In conclusion. I think about this book all the time. I have been getting all of my friends to obsess over it and I think you should hop on this train, personally.
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Rating: really liked it
I cannot actually believe my hands declared their independence from the auto-control of my brain and gave 3.5 stars and rounded it down to three stars! I can shout at my hands and tell them they are ungrateful! They should have clapped this author’s creativity for this controversial, unique, fantastic plot and good characterization but well, my hands made the right decision! You know why! Okay keep reading and stop yawning in front of me!
I already started my happy dance and dropped this book several times as I performed Travolta’s classic hip and point move because I started one of the most anticipated books of the year and it deserved to be celebrated with my over exaggerated dance moves (at least I gave an quiet amazing show to the neighbor’s kids who got bored from their Fifa tournaments on play station)
How can you resist to a plot about necromancers and well rounded, intriguing badass heroine characters.
But when I started to flip pages, my thoughts completely changed. I read 150 pages…Nothing happened…
I treated this book as patient as I could (I’m aries, patience is not my best virtue) and I read 50 pages more. Nada… Another 50 pages more…Still nothing… I started to think maybe Jerry Seinfield used a different pen name and wrote this book about nothingness as he’d done with his TV show “Seinfield”
Well 50 pages later…Still nothing happened and I cuddled with the book and took a break because I got also lost with the technical terms of the book. I even tried to order a dictionary about necromancers to understand their terminology. But no publishing companies released this useful source! I also had hard time to understand true natures, attributes, motives, back stories of characters because they were more 15! There are nine houses and I prepared schematic to match the characters with its houses like I’d done with the time tables of character’s aging when I was watching enigmatic German Netflix series named Dark!
I was so bored and suffering from lack of energy. I couldn’t even lift my glass so my husband helped me drink my Chardonnay with a straw (I know, I disgusted with myself, too!)
And after 300 pages later, something magically happened! THE STORY’S PACE SUDDENLY FASTENED! The story turned into a great combination of space opera, thriller, mystery and sci-fi. It was sad, funny some parts are too edgy, gothic and irritating. Actually I appreciated writer’s effort to create this amazing and extraordinary concept. However the creativity and visualization defeated by complex, long, slow-paced writing and unlikable characters. Especially heroine acted so immature and annoying little brat who deserved my tones of slaps.
If it wasn’t for the first 300 torture, I could give this book 5 stars for the author’s success to bring out something different, shiny, capturing, special but in my opinion, book was needed reductions and polishing of characterizations before the release date! I still enjoyed so many parts but I felt like I watched three times the first 28 minutes of Saving Private Ryan! I got really exhausted as if I ran 10K marathon or 10 bottle Chardonnay drinkathon!
Intentions, originality, high efforts of the author but maybe I lately read too long books and my timing was not right to start something needs to much energy, concentration. So unfortunately this one didn’t work for me,too.
Rating: really liked it
ARC & Review copy provided by the publisher—Tor.com—in exchange for an honest review. Gideon the Ninth is a damn fine example of why readers’ reviews are incredibly important. If you have been active on bookish social media, you should know by now that
Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir’s debut and the first installment in
The Locked Tomb (or
The Ninth House in the past) Trilogy, has been tor.com's most hyped book of the year. The buzz and praise for
Gideon the Ninth has been immense to say the least. Knowing nothing other than the fact that “Lesbian necromancers in space” was stamped on the front of the gorgeous cover art (illustrated by Tommy Arnold), I gave the ARC a try a few months ago only to find myself disappointed by how much it didn’t work for me back then. If I may be brutally honest, I DNFed the novel around 120 pages in on my first read-through. Since then, readers’ reviews have started pouring in, usually resulting in absolute love or disappointment; there’s almost no in-between. But there’s one common consensus shared by both factions: the second half improved significantly. After receiving another copy of this book, a limited edition with black sprayed edges and many goodies, it was only fair that I give it one more try. The result? I enjoyed it remarkably more than I did on my first try. I truly believe that knowing the right things to expect out of this book ahead of reading it will improve the reader’s enjoyment so much more.
Picture: The book and the goodies I received! 
Gideon Nav—or Gideon the Ninth—prepares to escape again but she can’t do it without doing one last service for her childhood nemesis: Harrowhark Nonagesimus. The Emperor of the First House has sent an invitation to all the heirs of each one of his Houses to attend a trial of wit and skill; the winner will become a Lyctor—an immortal and a direct all-powerful servant of the Emperor. Each heir needs a cavalier, a bodyguard, to help them win the trial and this is where Gideon comes in, serving as Harrow’s cavalier.
Gideon the Ninth isn’t an easy book for me to review because of the opposite reaction I had in the reading experience of the first half and the second half.
Several readers—myself included—have mentioned that the first half of the book was difficult to get through and I really can’t blame them. In my opinion, the first half was a struggle to read because of how annoying and tiring Gideon’s voice can be to read, which became even more intolerable when the vow of silence was put on Gideon by Harrow and Harrow herself wasn’t in the scenes to act as a counterbalance against Gideon’s attitudes for almost 100 pages. Gideon acted and talked like a juvenile trying way too hard to be funny and edgy and it became annoying quickly. The side characters—excluding Harrow—also took a while to remember and warm up to. Please remember that there’s a character glossary at the beginning of the book to help you remember who’s who more easily; put it to good use. But here’s the important thing, these minor complaints from me, somehow, existed only within the first half; the second half turned the book completely around and headed into a significantly better direction for me.
I honestly didn’t think a turnaround was possible. However, once the story entered Act 3, and the genre shifted more to a murder mystery, I found every single aspect of the book so much better to read.
Gideon the Ninth is a bizarre book that doesn’t fall into one specific genre properly; it’s like a hybrid between sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. I highly enjoyed reading the second half of
Gideon the Ninth, because the murder mysteries elements were captivating, Muir’s prose became much easier to follow, the action sequences were awesome, and most importantly the character development—especially for Gideon and Harrow—was terrific. A huge part of why the sudden positive change in reading enjoyment was possible is due to Harrow’s role in the story. I loved Harrow and personally think she’s a much better character than Gideon. What made this even more incredible is that Harrow doesn’t even have a POV to follow; the narrative was told entirely from Gideon’s perspective and yet, Harrow stole the spotlight for me.
“Anyone can learn to fight. Hardly anyone learns to think.”
Also, I have to give tons of praise to Muir’s imaginative action scenes. The deathly army of bones and visceral swordplay unleashed throughout the novel were darkly delightful to read, but the final 40 pages exceeded everything that came before; it was simply glorious. I’m not kidding, a maelstrom of bones, gripping revelations, and cinematic scenes full of twists and turns, flashy swordplay, and extraordinary necromancy created a memorable final sequence that made me incredibly excited to continue to the next book as soon as possible. I want to read more of this necromantic whirlwind.
Picture: Construct by Tommy Arnold 
As you can probably guess, I have a contrasting opinion regarding the first and second halves of the novel. However, and this is very important, it’s worth noting that the superbly thrilling second half won admiration and my utmost interest to continue to the sequel,
Harrow the Ninth, which obviously will feature Harrow (yay!!!) as the main focus of the story. Imbued with intriguing mysteries, terrifically written swordplay, explosive final sequences, and a lasting impression, needless to say
Gideon the Ninth has become one of the most original SFF debuts I’ve read so far. It’s bizarre, complex, imaginative, genres-defying, and distinctively memorable; I am very much looking forward to reading the continuation of Muir’s imagination in
Harrow the Ninth.
You can order the book from: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository (Free shipping)You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Rating: really liked it
In retrospect, this book is a bag of Doritos Mix. Either you love the pastiche, or you don't, but there's nothing about this that is going to be a classic that people will come back to time and time again. It's snack food, pure and simple, fun to munch-crunch, some parts better than others (but perhaps just the occasional
too much to really sit well.)
Following a young person desperate to get off her residential planet, it has the distinctive voice of a new adult/young adult book, full of snark and fire. In the right mood, it's amusing. In the wrong mood, it will likely become tiresome.
Gideon the Ninth most reminds me of a high-stakes island mystery as written by Suzanne Collins, set in the world of Chronicles of Riddick.
"Gideon woke to an unfamiliar ceiling, a fuzzy taste on her tongue, and the exciting smell of mould. The light blazed in red slashes even through her eyelids, and it made her come to all at once. For long moments she just lay back in her nest of old bedding and looked around."
There is seriously interesting stuff going on with the world-building. The star system is populated by a necromatic society, which each of the worlds specializes in a different type of necromancy. That's about all we get for the depth, though. Apparently, the society been has been under the Undying King for ten thousand years. Gideon is part of the Ninth world, a foundling on an isolated rock of a planet, populated by a rigid sect of necromancers whose specialty seems to be control over bones. After eighty-seven attempts at escaping the Ninth, she's forced to become the right-hand swordsman cavalier to the necromancer Reverend Daughter Harrowhawk, her arch-enemy since childhood. The Undying King is seeking eight people to ascend to his court and become Lyctors, and Harrowhawk fully intends to be one of them.
The problems is that despite interesting ideas about what different necromancer cultures might look like, some aspects aren't integrated at all. Dialogue frequently includes phrases like
"'Oh whoops, my bad,' said Gideon. 'For a moment I thought you weren't a huge bitch." or like this:
"'Slow down, numbnuts,' she hissed, when she thought they were out of earshot of anyone. 'Where's the fire?'
'Nowhere--yet.' Harrow sounded breathless.
'I've eaten my own body weight. Don't make me hurl.'
'As mentioned before, you're a hog. Hurry up. We don't have much time.'
and would you believe a
"That's what she said."Parse that out a minute, why don't you? Really, stop and think. You could have overheard that in the back seat of your car, if you're a mom of pre-teens, or in my swim lane if I'm being particularly rude to one of my guy friends (yes, I don't talk like that to the female ones). There's many little anachronisms like that that perhaps would be explained by being the remnants of another culture (there are intriguing hints of such), but I don't buy it in lexicon. This is Hollywood version, so if you are the sort of fantasy or sci-fi reader that prefers a less
contemporary feel to your culture, proceed thoughtfully.
I love the idea of specializing in different aspects of death and soul, and there's a lot to be explored here. I'm not sure that the death culture we saw gelled well with the idea of the Undying King living ten thousand years, however. I have questions.
The story is divided in to five acts. The first act is on the Ninth, the remainder are on the First World. The pacing was curious. I thought from the first act that it was a new adult style story about Gideon finding her independence/destiny, but when we reach the second act, the feel of the story changes significantly, and it is more of a 'look how fun this is' exercising in setting and character. Third Act raises the stakes, and the Fifth Act is bonkers. So while I'd agree with other reviewers who found the final part of the story inconsistent or off with pacing, I'd have to say the book as a whole has some challenges along those lines. It almost seems like it's because Muir can't quite handle all the stories she wants to tell.
There is a fair amount of humor, some situational, some descriptive, and some from the snark. There's a couple of shy younger people that talk in lowercase voices, and who are generally mortified whenever the adult they are with approaches Gideon. They are initially hilarious.
Characterization is decent, especially considering that there are at least two representatives from each of the worlds. Muir does help the reader along with code words like "oh, the Fourth and their ghosts..." or some such, but again, it's a large cast.
Oh, and about the lesbian relationship? Uh,
very complicated, and
very young adult. I'm not sure what other readers were reading, but I'd never call this a 'romance,' as much as a (view spoiler)
[ complicated, fucked-up relationship with an unsatisfying conclusion. And perhaps un-pc one. (hide spoiler)] It mostly worked for me, but I timed myself so that I was open to sarcasm and snark, and tried to let go of any expectations of storytelling. Eventually, however, it felt a little long. There is some emotional growth at the end, although while it felt somewhat rewarding, it also felt a bit of a cheat, because I'm not sure I believed it, mostly because the more "world-building" there was, the less I felt the underpinnings of the story held together. Still, interesting, which is somewhat hard to find; good, if young, characters. Recommended with all the above warnings. Taking my own advice, I'm not entirely sure I'll go on to the next.
Three-and-a-half bones. I honestly could have rounded this one either way. Down for the fact I had to re-start it, and at one point, force myself to continue, up because it made me chuckle quite a few times, and I like what Muir does with her language. So today we'll go up.
Note: I abstained from both new-adult and snark for a significant amount of time in order to prepare for this book.
Rating: really liked it
Need a good read for a bad day? Here's a Booktube Video all about it!!
The Written Review 
While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.
Gideon the Ninth comes from an universe
seeped in necromancy.Her home planet, the Ninth planet, is by far the most isolated but when the Emperor calls for representatives from all of the Houses to a series of trials to determine the worthiest to
inherit unimaginable power.Harrow is the heir of the Ninth and the strongest necromancer of their planet and she needs....a sword. And Gideon just-so-happens to know the sword.
But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit.
Gideon and Harrow have hated each other ever since they could remember.
But when Harrow dangles Gideon's freedom...Gideon knows that no matter what she will have to follow this through...to the very end itself.
“just had a near-death experience,” she said, “let me have my little moment.”
Oh. My. Gosh.This book. Holy crap.
I'm so dead. I'm ruined for any and all future books.
And that's keeping in mind that
I struggled to follow this book.There's an absolute ton of lore and terms thrown at you from the very first page.
The plot starts going and absolutely refuses to back up and explain.
And the characters? Whip smart and leagues ahead of me.
And yet...all the
confusion and absolute chaos worked so incredibly perfect..
Gideon was so freaking hilarious, Harrow was stunning and their world was horrifyingly cruel.
I couldn't look away.The world was so wholly complete and truly stunning. The necromantic magic was so well-thought out and fascinating.
I really do believe that I need to reread this one to pick up a few more things but I honestly can't wait.
YouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads
Rating: really liked it
Update: $2.99 Kindle US 7/28/20PS - I was too late to get the black stained edges so... I said hell with it. I did my own!
Holy shit ass snacks! That was different and I loved it!! I’m loving the covers on these books too!
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for BEST SCIENCE FICTION and BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2019! what will happen?”You want to fight it.”
“Yep.”
“Because it looked…a little like swords.”
”Yop.”
okay. so. usually when i write a review, i am writing it for some nameless, faceless reader who is deciding whether or not to read a book and looking for some information to help them make that decision, so i’ll do the whole plot-point, pull-quote thing—giving an overview of the book so they know what to expect, to know if it’s their kind of thing or not. those are the reviews i find the most helpful to me, so that’s what i put out there.
this time…just, no.
there’s no way i can explain the premise of this book. i envy and respect anyone who attempts it, but i can’t be that girl this time.
this book is…a lot. it’s got a ton of characters, a complexly-constructed world, and a genre mash made up of space opera, murder mystery, horror, and whatever the literary term is for where it’s like a magic-and-science-based scavenger hunt at the olympics, but where some people are expected to die.
i’m not gonna lie, i got lost a couple of times. helpful dramatis personae pages are helpful
but i would also suggest you bookmark the page where the characters gather for the first time, to memory-refresh the personality details of the eighteen competitors, because some of them got blurry for me. there are a lot of working parts here, and the worldbuilding is thick, but like the House of the First itself, it’s a little bit ramshackle, with unexplained bits and leftover pieces. but just go with it, plow right into the whole bone-cladded thicket of it,
because it’s a romp of a book, and it’s propulsive enough to carry you through the story without understanding every little thing. in fact, the lingering mysteries will only add to your appreciation.
it’s a ridiculously fun book, sad and funny and irreverent and suspenseful, with all the dramatically satisfying themes of honor and heroism, loyalty and betrayal, piloted by gideon, a snarky firecracker of a heroine who declares “that’s what she said,” not once, but TWICE, which is—to me—the height of comedy and a phrase certain to win my love.
try it, you'll like it! i'm already hungering for books 2 and 3!
oh, and someone give danny elfman a copy of this book. and, since you’re already there, tell him i need an oingo boingo reunion tour.
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thank you, i DID!
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okay, let's do this.
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my stack of "books i am drooling over and need to read immediately" is the cursiest blessing...
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
DNFSo, in a quest to clear my Currently-reading shelf, I forced myself to return to this book.
In December, I stopped reading with my thoughts being that I was intrigued by the story, but the writing was not for me. It felt sort of heavy-handed and very hard to get through. Confusing even.
So, now, I read the whole Act One. And while my opinion on the writing did not change. I started to lose a bit of my interest in the story.
It may get better when the story progresses more. Maybe. But there is nothing that makes me want to read more to get to that point.
Rating: really liked it
Check out my YouTube channel where I show my instant reactions upon finishing reading fantasy books. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.Did not finish at 95% completion. I just couldn't punish myself any longer.
I really should have seen this one coming, as the book has so many features that do not work for me as a reader. While there are exceptions to all of these genres, in general I'm not usually a big science fiction fan, nor a horror fan, nor a mystery fan. But the book is so highly rated in the fantasy book community and many reviewers who I usually agree with said positive things about this book that I decided to give it a try. But I should have listened to my gut because not only did all of these things add up to a very bad tasting cocktail of a book, but I found the writing style and characters to be...and I say this trying to be as kind as I possibly can...absolutely abysmal.
The plot of this book revolved around a "whodunit", and while on it's own this isn't horrible, the central plot has so little tension that it ended up being a severe bore for me. People are randomly dying and everyone is blaming each other, and the feeling the author is trying to convey is one of tension, but for me I just didn't end up caring and hoping it would get revealed earlier so the book could hurry up and finish.
The worldbuilding is extremely shallow, which was especially frustrating because the foundation that is lain out at the beginning of the book had a lot of promise. I wanted to know about the world the characters were living on, why there are different schools of necromany, the details of the ongoing war and the reason for the collapsing empire. I got none of that, and was rather quickly thrown into a game of "Clue" instead.
Aside from Gideon and her necromancer Harrowhark from the 9th house, there are seven other "houses" of people competing to solve the mystery. But those characters don't get much depth, and are mostly referred to by their house titles (2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.). This ends up needlessly confusing, and makes the characters entirely forgettable.
Gideon herself is most certainly in my top 3 least favorite POV characters in fantasy that I've ever read. While she has a compelling backstory that gets revelations later in the book, her personality can best be described as extremely edgy teenager. Everything she says is either sarcastic, full of contempt, trying to be too cool (get ready for plenty of uses of "dope", and other similar uses of complex vocabulary), or some combination of the above.
I could go on, and on - but I'm going to stop here so I can just stop thinking about this book and move on to something else. This book may be right up your alley, especially if you are into science fiction and mysteries - but it's definitely not for me.
Rating: really liked it
Well, I finished. If nothing else, at least I received closure that it wasn't the timing that was off for me surrounding this story. I could go through a long list of
why this book didn't work for me, but instead I'll just leave it at that, it didn't work for me. Chaima wrote a fantastic review that expresses my thoughts 100% HERE, so if you'd like an alternative, unpopular opinion that is well written and fairly offered, please check it out.
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy.
Rating: really liked it
I've been sitting on this DNF for a couple months now. For those of you who are avid YouTube watchers of mine, you know I could not get through this book. I wasn't going to rate it but I feel SO strongly about this 1 star rating. This book suffers from the Tor hype as did The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons which I also highly disliked. The writing is a mess. Characters names are "neiowhgiewongow"..
The main character is an absolute ass. She gets the chance to get off the planet and her literal response is “go suck a dick”
This book tried so hard to be edgy and goth, with skellies and DEAD DEAD DEAD and absolutely failed.
