Review: Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
by
Stuart Holland
God damn. You should read this book. It’s fucking great.
This book oozes style. The characters are great - Gideon particularly has a very strong and recognizable voice. She is understandably pissed off with the universe about everything that has happened to her (and much of what happens in the book).
The prose doesn’t stop to explain to the reader - you have to pay attention and follow things along. And Tamsyn has a great flair for juxtaposition in that prose. Sometimes I stopped and marveled at a sentence, thinking “That’s a beautiful and elegant sentence”. And then sometimes the words are just “And fuck you.” The way it swaps between serious and comedic is masterful. And it’s been a long time since I had to break out a dictionary, but didn’t feel like the book was trying to get me to break out a dictionary.
It’s a fantasy book - the price of entry is great magic, characters, and world. It has all of those in spades. The thing that elevates it is the minute-to-minute writing, just exquisitely executed.
I’ve also got to take a moment to say that “Harrowhark Nonagesimus” is a great name. And shortening to Harrow so we’re sure how to pronounce it is one of those subtlies this book really excels at.
I wondered how there could be so many variants of necromancer when they seem such a narrow “field of magic” to fill out a full cast. But I was not disappointed - the specialities and depth are there for all of them.
And even though this was a complete story unto itself - it delivers on the promises it sets up with aplomb - I still don’t know so much about how this world works. I’m gonna read the rest of these and find out. And you should read them too.
