A review by dancers_and_dragons
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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

4.25

Gideon the Ninth is a dark exploration of the possibilities where magic and science collide. I listened to the audiobook, which was delightful narration, but I do admit that if I had read a copy instead of listening to it, it would have taken me much longer to finish. The first portion of the book is fascinating, but with a lot of names, places, and people thrown around, some of which don't become significant to the reader until later. While fantastic for setting up the world, it can also take a while to tread through.

Muir does a fantastic job of painting her fantasy world in gritty detail, not shying away from the gore, blood, and bone that result from necromancy in The Locked Tomb trilogy's system of magic. While the descriptions sometimes verge on body horror, Muir does a fantastic job of balancing the disgust from some characters with the fact of the characters' reality. Gideon is not always a reliable narrator, but that also makes the book very immersive, as you only see the plot, as a whole, through her eyes instead of anyone else's. 

Overall this was a riveting mystery with gut-wrenching detail in both emotional and physical descriptions that made me both feel for the characters and engage with their stories. It's certainly not a book for everyone, as it covers some dark themes and looks intimately at death and its implications, but I found Muir's exploration of necromancy's possibilities both insightful and intriguing.
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