Lucas Blogs About Gideon the Ninth

"The most fun you'll ever have with a skeleton" is a pretty bold claim, especially once you realize that you do everything with a skeleton.

 

So, what's this book's deal?

It's about lesbian necromancers . . . IN  SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!

I see.

Well, that's the elevator pitch version anyway. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, is a sci-fi/fantasy novel about Gideon Nav. Who is Gideon Nav? A hard-headed, acid-tongued teenager who wants nothing more than to escape her childhood home of the Ninth House and join the Imperial Cohort.

Oh no, this is gonna be one of those blogs where you have to preface the synopsis with a massive paragraph of exposition, isn't it?

I'll try and make it quick. Ten thousand years ago the solar system of the nine houses (which is almost definitely our solar system) died, and the Emperor (who is revered as a god-king) revived it with necromancy. Subsequently, necromancy is a pretty big deal, and each house (headquartered on a different planet or moon) has their own speciality. Some do spirit magic, some do body magic, and the Ninth House does bone magic. Each house is lead by a necromancer and each necromancer is protected by a cavalier. I think that's about all you need to understand what's about to follow.

Okay, we'll see.

All right. Gideon is a foundling. As a literal infant she was discovered in the spacesuit of a dead woman who fell into the Ninth House, and whose spirit would only cry out "Gideon!" when summoned. She was raised alongside Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter, and more or less the leader of the little death cult that the Ninth House has going. See, the Ninth House is home to the locked tomb where the Emperor's greatest foe is. . .

You're looking for a synonym for "entombed" aren't you?

Yeah, but I already used "tomb" earlier in that sentence. Anyway, Harrow has been summoned to Canaan House on the Emperor's homeworld, where she will join the other houses' necromancers to see if any of them can unlock the secrets of ascending to sainthood and become immortal Lyctors serving at the Emperor's side. But she has a problem, the house cavalier, Ortus Nigenad isn't much of a fighter, and also he's flown the coop. So she makes a deal with Gideon, if Gideon can pretend to be the house cavalier for the time it takes Harrow to become a Lyctor, then Gideon will be free to put her lousy traumatic childhood in a creepy death cult behind her. What horrors await Harrow and Gideon in Canaan House? Are the other necromancers a bunch of creeps and weirdos? Will the Locked Tomb, for which this series is named, ever be opened?

That's all your gonna give us?

Well, that's only the first few chapters, but honestly, I only knew that much about the book going in. And, honestly, the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is a good deal more important than any of the actual plot of the novel.

So, it's more character-driven than plot driven?

Got it in one. The whole novel is written in limited third-person with a tight focus on Gideon's perspective. So while Gideon isn't directly narrating, her viewpoint dominates the narrative and the ways in which key plot elements are framed. So, while one character might be doling out important plot information, the reader might not pick up on it because Gideon cares more about her doomed flirtation with the Seventh House necromancer Dulcinea Septimus, or trying to impress the so-called "shitty teens" from the Fourth House who are really only a few years her junior. And that's not to mention her conflicted feelings about Harrow, her childhood tormentor/only friend/crush object. So while I wouldn't say that the third-person narration is unreliable, Muir makes it plain that Gideon's biases are framing our perceptions.

Oh, you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the writing then?

Why not? As a writer, Muir excels at characterization and atmosphere. Which is good because Gideon the Ninth becomes something of a drawing-room mystery in the middle, with colorful characters exploring the gothic ruins of an ancient castle/necromancy lab complex. The characters are mostly types, but Muir gives them enough life to occasionally surprise you, and Gideon for that matter. This also helps with the world-building. Instead of giving an in depth description of say, the Fifth and Sixth Houses, Muir fleshes out the characters and lets you figure out what their behavior says about the places they live. Then, of course, there's Harrowhark.

Ah yes, you made it seem like she's kind of important.

She is. As I mentioned earlier, her relationship with Gideon is one of the central focal points of the novel. While they are initially antagonistic towards each other, their relationship is much more codependent than either would care to admit. They have almost nothing in common but their shared trauma, related to a couple of dramatic plot reveals later on in the book. However, as the story progresses, they begin to sort out their feelings and make amends for the ways they've treated each other.

So exactly what sort of relationship do they have?

Well, without spoiling anything, it seems like perhaps their feelings for each other are more than platonic, but at the same time they have a long history of treating each other abominably that can't just be set aside. It's messy, their relationship is messy. On the one hand, they trade acid-tongued barbs on the other hand they do have a deep emotional connection. And, as this is the first book in a series, it's ultimately left unresolved.

Okay.

But that's not to say that the story doesn't have an ending, just that the ending leaves room for the story to continue. Anyway, something I haven't touched on yet is that the book is actually quite funny. Part of this is due to Gideon herself, who's something of a smart-mouth (something she's ordered to hide so that she will appear to have taken a vow of silence); and it's also partly due to Muir's writing, which is always ready with an ironic understatement or turn of phrase. Whether it's Gideon's discomfort with Dulcinea's forwardness or the shitty teens sneaking around like they're in an episode of Scooby-Doo, there's always some shenanigans or goings-on afoot. That said, the actual plot of the story isn't quite as engaging as it should be. The book is fairly long and drags a little in the early going before the first dead bodies start showing up (that is to say the first freshly murdered bodies, not the first bodies raised from the dead). But overall, it's a fun reading experience and I would recommend it to people who like sci-fi/fantasy/coming-of-age/drawing-room mystery-comedies.

That's a very specific genre.

Well, how is a genre useful if it isn't specific?

You're the worst, Lucas.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Tor Books trade paperback edition, July 2020 (originally published in hardcover September 2019), 475 pages, pairs well with vegetables cultivated by reanimated skeletons

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So originally this was the start of a trilogy, with the third book due out this year, but apparently Muir must have found herself with an overabundance of material. So now a third book is forthcoming next year with a fourth in 2023.