Review: Gideon the Ninth

Rating: ★★★★☆

Author: Tamsyn Muir

Title: Gideon the Ninth

ISBN: 9781250313188

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Publisher: Tor, 2020

Page Count: 496 pages

Synopsis from Publisher: The Emperor needs necromancers.

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

The writing style in the opening of Gideon the Ninth felt jarring, following my read of Mexican Gothic. And it honestly took me until the next chapter or so to sink my teeth into Tamsyn Muir's style. Every review that was glowing seemed to suggest the same, though they said it with more praise and reverence: "This is like nothing I've read"'s and "I've no words"'s.

Often when I see this, I feel a little wary that it's praise for praise's sake. There's a false equivalency made between something being different being inherently good. Compounded, the cover even had a quip about lesbian necromancers, which as we've seen when marketing diverse books that can be a death nell when that's all you have to say. I wondered if I would hate Gideon the Ninth, or if it would be a slow burn for me based on this first taste.

Tamsyn Muir's Writing Style

I'm not sure what was going on with my brain or Muir's writing style in the first chapter. I caught myself having to reread a few times to root myself in what was happening. Since finishing the book, I have revisited that first chapter more than once (to recall a detail or two), and it reads much smoother than I remembered. Perhaps it just took time to adjust. However, nothing about the style made me put it down, so clearly something was working.

Muir was a breath of fresh air in a world of first-person narratives. The framing was third-person limited, and its execution was effective and powerful. Muir never lost their voice when speaking for Gideon, and Gideon never lost hers. Together, there was a melding of low-brow humor, elevated language in description, intensity and "to hell with it" in feeling the action, and enough keen observation from our main character. The prose itself read easy, but that did lead me to stumble through a few phrases here and there.

While Muir shined at illustrating this bizarre interplanetary world of necromancers, she did often paint the world in ways that sometimes felt more like abstract metaphor than literal description until I got used to her writing. When she described the bone-clad nunnery of the Drearburgh, I didn't realizing it wasn't always a knock against their countenance or frame, but an actual reference to the accessorizing that could only come from a planet consumed by its ritualistic ossuary (or a dedicated Hot Topic mall goth). Aesthetics were as much materialistic as they were a reflection of theology and culture from planet-to-planet in Gideon the Ninth. To the point of descriptions, though, in some spaces where I expected lots of description, Muir held back, and I had to double-back to really see what the author's intention was before moving forward. It didn't happen often, but I noted it at times where perhaps Muir and I were just imagining something quite different.

My adjustment period with Muir's writing really only took a chapter or two, though. What I thought was a warning of word soup was just the pace at which you could stumble through her prose too quickly if you're not paying close attention. Muir set the scene well, described action vividly, and locked down those SAT words to really illustrate the audacity and seemingly higher theocratic system of this galaxy. There were still a few moments where I thought very generalized actions, like a character narrowing their eyes, could have been the counterweight to her heavier set-dressing by using simpler phrases such as "narrowed her eyes" rather than "closed her eyes into slits". But maybe that's just a personal preference?

What I experienced of Muir's humor, style, and tone enthralled me through to the very end.

Worldbuilding in Gideon the Ninth

One thing of note with Gideon the Ninth is the way in which Gideon's perspective supersedes all else (as it should, but you often see this fail). This protagonist is detached in the beginning, what of the setting she's most often seen is all that's relevant, and her "duties" up to this point for the Ninth House are irrelevant because she hates doing any of it or thinking about it. Gideon's perspective is an interesting parasite on this story's worldbuilding. It isn't until we leave the Ninth House that we explore the world more thoroughly. I mean, this makes sense for a character who's used to mostly seeing the inside of her cell. But I often felt abandoned and wanting as we roamed the Ninth House together.

This universe was a bit of a strange one to understand which I don't take to mean negatively; I can't say I've explored many books like this at all. Its interplanetary references certainly place it among other sci-fi stories with references to certain technologies that make travel possible and experiments outrageous, but Gideon the Ninth is far more magical fantasy, where emphasis sits quite firmly in a world of necromancers studying to become lyctors than anything else.

We are mostly in one place focused on these horrifically magical exercises and mysteries rather than fussed with highly technical accutrements that might accompany a galactic story and its characters. While there are laboratories, their existence is on the basis of necromantic power and experimentation, whose technology doesn't feel incredibly off balance with something we could create in our present time (though perhaps with a few safety mechanisms in place that are quite frankly only needed for monsters made from bone magic).

We received a description of this very strange planet in the beginning that I've seen online confused people a little. Here's how it's described:

The Ninth House was an enormous hole cracked vertically into the planet’s core, and the prison a bubble installation set halfway up into the atmosphere where the living conditions were probably a hell of a lot more clement.

[...] you had an unimpeded view up to a pocket of Ninth sky. It was soupy white where the atmosphere was pumped in thickest, and thin and navy where it wasn’t. The bright bead of Dominicus winked benignly down from the mouth of the long vertical tunnel.

The main questions I've seen from readers are:

1. Does this mean the entire planet only has one enormous building and the rest is dirt, or is there a sprawling settlement or city that's irrelevant to Gideon's life on the Ninth?

2. Is everyone just chilling in this strange death mall with prisons, a church, and one Locked Tomb?

Here's where I wonder so much about the Ninth House, and I am curious if Harrow's sequel will tell me more - surely the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House will have a lot to say about her own planet. Her kingdom. Gideon? The indentured servant who couldn't give a fuck about where she is? Good luck, chump. For that, this limited view feels effective. Everything is a towering prison with skeletal puppets when your only experience is a living hell.

Throughout Act One, I only saw from cell to pew to icy cold chamber (and a small glimpse outside), so I just don't know what else there is. It hardly feels like an entire planet. Perhaps a very small dwarf planet (since the nine planets feel like a reference to our solar system in some way). We get some biting commentary about Harrow's concern for the Ninth's census records when a nun dies of shock right in the pews. So perhaps this place can afford to just house an entire population within the walls of some monstrous thing sprouting from the planet's core. But is this all there is?

This is Catholicism for mall goths. Everyone is dressed like they worship Death, praying in a cathedral of death. The necromancy is part of every aspect of their lives, clearly. Because this society feels very theocratic, you'd expect some political intrigue wrapped up in this interesting interweaving of religion. However, aside from learning the prayers and seeing the background cast adorned as members of a gothic nunnery or veiled servants to their dark ends, you don't get to really see any of it from a meaningful perspective.

The Ninth is clearly failing somewhat as a planet, as indicated by the census remark I mentioned earlier and the way Harrow tells Gideon to keep her mouth shut and follow orders when they go on their mission to the First. Harrowhark is determined to make the Ninth still look good in front of the other Houses while they're all competing to become a lyctor for a mysterious god known as the Necrolord Prime. There is some war happening with an enemy we don't know, the effects of the war of which we don't see, and the reason this entire universe is damned to necromantic pursuit a little unclear. It just is what it is when we meet these characters and they set off on their mission. Presumably, we will learn more in the sequels where I assume lyctorhooddom will manifest into action.

But who am I kidding? As if Gideon would even dare to tell me more. Truth is, she probably was taught years ago and threw it out of her brain because she didn't care, or she just really never knew. Perhaps I need to wait to be readily delighted by one of the sequels where someone less bite-y will tell me more.

You have to earn the lore from Muir. The scenes pushed forward without lingering too long on some expositional detour to lay things out for the reader. Instead, questions about theocracy, politics, and the cogs that keep the day-to-day moving nagged at the back of my mind as I pressed on happily - even if I really really did just want to learn more about this strange planet we started with before moving on. Muir doesn't hold your hand and show you everything she's been doodling in the margins. But she does want to make you hungry for it.

However, when Gideon did find her sense of purpose and emotional stock in what was happening, she learned and learned fervently. And Harrow, after years of fighting with her peer, relented and told her what she needed to know. Getting to bite into just a hunk of the story this way felt meaningful because Gideon earned it, and so did we.

As my final note to Muir's writing style, as it relates to affect of prose, I did find Muir's use of pronouns over names - spliced in with references to these characters by their aliases - a little hard to follow. I caught myself more than once wondering who "he" was supposed to mean in a sentence, and realizing I was choked up on a character again. This book also has quite a few characters. When we arrive at the First House, we are appropriately introduced to everyone, but I would be lying if I didn't say I lost track a couple of times later in the book. Muir does repair some of this by reducing the focus of the cast by Act Three, but they are still often referenced by more than one name/alias that did require my brain to have to think harder about who we were talking about on occasion (and this may just be a personal issue - other readers may not have experienced this).

Examining Gideon Nav

Gideon is funny, make no bones about that. Gideon has porn rags full of tits, that she only reads for the articles - of course. She's a fighter and indentured servant with nothing to lose. She's crass, she's crude, she hates the Ninth, and her point-of-view is the best dissenting voice to introduce you to this world. I can only imagine what I'll find with the sequels where perspectives change, and what I witnessed of Gideon's personal growth changes to sit with Harrowhark and her personal journey and scholarly diligence.

Gideon Nav works so well as a main character because she's a bit of a flawed Han Solo, in the way she regards those around her and even herself. She's cocky, feisty, sardonic, but her motivations aren't lost by her movements. You're introduced to a harsh world of shadows and death worship by someone who... Simply couldn't give a shit. It doesn't mean that Gideon is always right in how she feels or expresses it, but given our real-world inclination for Light-sided morals and civil freedoms, having this character be so starkly opposed to their inversed world makes you feel less lost trying to find a way to relate to the setting and its chorus of skeletons clambering in the background. It's a world of death, and with that brings some hilariously nihilistic and atheistic opinions about this strange universe.

At no point does that wit undercut real emotion, however. Muir does a great job of showing off that sometimes Gideon is all bark and no bite. A perfect example is when it dawns upon her that she'll be leaving the Ninth House to accompany Harrow in their final day there. Despite the seething between those two, and Gideon rolling her eyes during the final prayer, she has a moment of true reflection. Did she perhaps feel some sort of nostalgia? After trying to escape this planet her entire life, here she was feeling a pang of something at the realization that she was finally leaving. It wasn't enough to make you tear up as a reader, but it was enough to make you sit with Gideon for a moment as she realized she wasn't going to be able to so easily sarcasm her way out of this emotion. It was a noted touch, where piles of books lay at my feet of characters whose emotional responses to the worlds around them and their actions don't match up or follow through on the plot that was promised. We see Gideon experience a revelatory sense of autonomy during her time in the First. And no, I won't have spoilers here, but just know that I felt a Lot of Feelings by the end of this damned book. Gideon keeps the story moving forward and keeps your eyes open as she explores. This is what a main character should be doing.

More Thoughts and a Post-Mortem

The one thing that I think holds me back on giving this a 5-star review are the moments I mentioned above of a polishing of prose where I was left wanting with description or character references, and the mystery of the worldbuilding that I could have sunk my teeth into more. Without spoiling a lot about the ending, however, I will say a lot was offered in the climax (and surely to be explored in the sequel) when it comes to the war, the sacrifice of lyctorhood, and the consequences of political subterfuge

For a debut that was published just four years ago, this was such a bold and admirable story. Muir's style is so starkly different from the debut authors I have read who have published in the last five years. Muir's linguistic choices encapsulate all the ways this story folds into a true sense of dark academia and might even moreso as we follow the perspective of Harrow, a scholar of her practice, in the next one. The trials, humor, and aesthetic arrangements of Gideon the Ninth will stick with me as something to consider in my own prose going forward. I cannot wait to see how Muir's voice melds with someone so stoic and pontifical as Harrowhark Nonagesimus in Harrow the Ninth.