The hardest thing about reading Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth is that it’s going to be a long wait until next summer when the next book comes out.
Gideon Nav has spent her life as the servant of the cult of death known as the Ninth House; locked in battle of body and mind with the daughter of that house, Harrowhark. Despised, outcast, her entire existence is an affront to the Ninth. When circumstances wind her up in a complicated plot to elevate Harrow to God’s side as one of his personal necromancers, Gideon finds herself in the awkward position as Harrow’s protector.
In the depths of a laboratory filled with existential horror (and not-at-all-existential horrors,) Gideon learns the truth about…everything. Gideon and Harrow’s story unfolds in multiple surprising labyrinthine twists and turns for a dark, death-filled story that was a damn funny read.
This book marched forward inexorably, full of violence and death but also full of strength and, ultimately, hope. Muir’s Gideon is a vulgar, straight-talking jerk and I loved her with all my heart. She would have settled in nicely among my friends.
You may see reviews by multiple reviewers saying that this is a story about “lesbian necromancers” or “lesbians in space” but that is like calling Milton’s Paradise Lost about “demons.” It’s not wrong, but it’s so very much aside from any of the points that you kind of had to ignore the entire story to find that description. What it *is* about is a wholly unique set of world-building, new and exciting forms of necromantic magic, (far beyond anything I had ever conceived, for sure,) and a likable asshole of a protagonist whose interest in women is relevant to the plot but not to a review of the plot, for fuck’s sake.
To reiterate, this book is full of violence and death. It is about necromancers. And some of that death is full of gobs.
But above all, amidst the rot and dust of the dead and the blood and phlegm of the living, I want to stress that this was one of the funniest things I have read in a very long time. It is read-out-loud quotable and I repeatedly read chunks out loud to my wife, because it was just that good.
Ratings:
Cover art – 10 Tommy Arnold’s cover is perfect. Muir even wrote a blog post for Tor dissecting it (hurh, hurh) so you can appreciate how good it is
Book design – 10 The font, the color of the pages, the book edged in black, where the color is allowed to bleed onto the page. It’s gorgeous
Story – 10 This is not hyperbole. Well, maybe a little, but only about 4/100ths hyperbole
Characters – 10 This is definitely not hyperbole. They were fanfuckingtastic
Lesbians – Yes, but stfu about it, christ, what a bunch of assholes reviewers are
Overall – 10
This is a really good book. A book so good that I insisted I read only one chapter a day because I didn’t want to blow through it too fast.
If you like scathing vulgarity by angry lesbians, violence and death, you should definitely read Gideon the Ninth. If you don’t like those things, then wtf are you doing reading Okazu, seriously.
(Thanks to Okazu god Ivan for the poke that motivated me to read this!)
Snerk. Well, I guess I have to go buy and read the damn thing, for fuck’s sake.
I recommend you do!
Hi, I had a small question. Among anime/manga fans in japan in general, how well known/common is the association of the word yuri or the flower with the genre. I read somewhere that anime/manga fans will think of the genre instead of the flower when they hear yuri but I was also told that most/regular anime/manga fans won’t think of that association and its mainly yuri fans/readers who will get that association. I was wondering, which is more accurate?
Hi Zain – I’m not sure there can be one, simple answer for your question. Every day there are many people who learn of something for the first time. I write and speak about the history of Yuri here and at conventions and classes – and so do others, but for every one person who knows, there may be many others who encountered the term only as a genre term. There is no such thing as a “regular” fan/ All fans are regular and all of them have different levels of interest and knowledge. That is part of why I am still writing and speaking about Yuri.
I see. Though I do understand that Yuri is still niche among anime, so maybe the term regular was a poor choice of words, I meant amongst anime/manga fans in general, would it be seen as rather unknown or rather, people may know of it, but don’t know too much about. Seeing as you’ve done research on this for two decades, if you had to guess, any ideas overall?
I understood, but there is no way to know what people “in general” think, because as I said, everyone is in a completely different place in regards to their understanding of their interest. You are seeking for quantification of a non-quantifiable thing unless you do quantitative research. If you wish to understand what a representative audience *might* say, you will need to do a survey of an actual representative sample. I will not make a guess at what people know or not, since I can see that the audience is as likely to be a kid who just discovered Yuri yesterday as a person who reads essays about Yuri history.
Ah ok. Well I was just curious, sorrry. BTW, would a survey of a representative audience show the answers of say fans in general or just for that sample?
You’d have to design the survey to measure the audience you want it to, but even by creating the survey, only people who are engaged enough to answer a survey would be measured. Do you see what I mean by “there is no such thing as average/regular/general?” There’s only fans. As soon as you start thinking what you actually mean, it all falls apart.
You’re asking “what is the average response of a person who knows of the Yuri genre (but possibly not the etymology of its name) to a specific question regarding Yuri etymology?” The audience who could respond would not be in any sense average, a Yuri is still a new, and therefore niche. It would be a very, very, very not-general audience.
I’m not annoyed that you asked…but it is tiring that you’re not listening to the answer. The answer to your question is that there is no simple answer to your question, because it is not the simple question you believe it is.
Go ahead. Use Surveymonkey and start working on a survey. You’ll see that your own bias instantly affects everything from the questions to the analysis of the answers. ^_^
I came here to make sure you knew about this book, even though I’m only one ninth of the way through it. It just seemed right up your alley.
I’m glad to see you do, and now I wonder how I missed this review two weeks ago — blame the end-of-year rush.
The reader for the audiobook is superb, also.
Oh excellent! I no longer have space in my life for audiobooks, but I’m glad the reader is good. It makes so much of a difference. Moira Quirk seems a good choice.
And thanks for taking care of me. Much obliged ^_^
As long as I am recommending things, may I suggest you take a look at *This is how you lose the time war* by Amal El Mohtar and Max Gladstone?
It is an epistolary novel consisting of “letters” between the agents of two opposed sides as they travel through time making adjustments, so that the timeline bends in one way or the other. What begins perhaps as taunts eventually becomes something else over the course of their long relationship.
Worth it for the descriptions of what the letters are, and how they are hidden, as well as for their contents. Not as entertaining as *Gideon the Ninth*, but marvelous in its own way.
Thanks. I probably won’t, as I find Gladstone loathesome, but I appreciate the suggestion!