A review by naughtrobot
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I embrace all things related to necromancy, so I was instantly attracted to Gideon The Ninth with it tagline hinting at necromantic adventures in space. Also the artwork of Gideon on the cover looking like a complete bad ass helped as well. After reading this book I have a few observations that future readers may want to consider should they decide to read Gideon The Ninth.

  •  The tagline "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" is a little misleading. There really isn't a mention of a romantic relationship between Gideon or anyone one else other than she finds a few of the other women in the story attractive. I guess if you travel via a starship from one planet to another you can say the story is set in space, but that's pretty much all the "in space" part of the book. Gideon The Ninth remains an entertaining story, but just realize it extremely focuses on necromancy and little of the other topics called out in the tagline.

  • The necromancy described in the book is more in depth than your standard zombie controlled garden variety. I love the concept of raising an army of zombies. But this book explores other ideas of necromancy such as using bone material for constructs, flesh manipulation, and siphoning off a person's life force to fuel necromantic spells. I appreciate the effort that went into making necromancy more just raising the dead. Very well done.

  • The book is slow paced for the first 100 or so pages. During that time there was a lot of world building. With my interest in necromancy I did enjoy learning about how it worked within the Locked Tomb's universe. Once the story got into the murder mystery the pace did pickup some. It wasn't until half way into act four that the pace quicken to my liking. There was still enough going on to maintain my interest that I can forgive the slow build up to the end of the story.

  • I loved the ending it was worth the wait and altered my mind about continuing on with the rest of the trilogy. I look forward to what Tamsyn Muir has in store for the following book Harrow The Ninth.
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