Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publication Date: September 10, 2019

I cannot even conceive of a reader who could hear about Tamsyn Muir's swashbuckling debut Gideon the Ninth without immediately lunging for a copy. It is literally beyond my comprehension that any sane person could hear that there exists a book about an intergalactic empire of space necromancers and just, like, shrug it off. Go about their day, whistling a jaunty tune, not reading about the lesbian necromancers in spaaaaaaaace.

Alas, for those sad souls that have been doing just that, know this: in a beautiful castle ten thousand years dead, the undying Emperor has gathered the heirs to the eight ruling Houses and their sworn cavaliers to battle it out for the ultimate prize: the immortality of a necro-saint, and a place at the Emperor's side. Through much and assorted fuckery, the hilarious and delightfully obscene master swordswoman Gideon Nav ends up as cavalier to her nemesis Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the House of the Ninth, the House that even the other Houses dread. (Which says quite a lot, as this is an intergalactic empire literally ruled by necromancers.) Bitching merrily the entire way, Harrow and Gideon descend upon the castle of the First House hoping for power (Harrow) and freedom (Gideon), only to find a vast labyrinth of ancient and eldritch secrets, byzantine politics, and more skeletons than any sane person could ever want, in places that skeletons should never, ever be. 

Seamlessly blending the hilarious with the macabre and the scientific with the magical, Gideon the Ninth is a true tour de force, the sort of book that cries out for a sequel. (And one's in the works, thank goodness.) The characters practically do somersaults off the page, written with a lightness of the soul that's more Addams Family than Stephen King, though the blood and body count are definitely more the latter than the former. You will love Gideon, or you will show yourself a liar. And you will love her world, bones and viscera and all. It's weird and wild and wonderful, and now that I've finished it I want nothing more than to read it again from the start. 

Murder and mayhem and madcap hilarity; what more could a reader want?