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Book Review
Feb. 6th, 2023 10:20 amGideon the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir
A necromancer and a swordfighter from a moribund planet reluctantly team up to join other similar teams in exploring a crumbling gothic mansion/laboratory as part of a quest to become an immortal, powerful servant of the undying Emperor. However, when people start turning up unwillingly and gruesomely dead, the nature of their quest shifts.
This book was a complete delight, albeit a very dark and bloody one. The plot and stakes are very serious but there is a lot of humor, most of it wonderfully dark and sarcastic. Gideon, bad-ass swordswoman and main protagonist, is snarky, irreverent, and gives very few fucks. I loved her. Harrow, her necromancer counterpart, is very troubled but also very brave and tough and possessed of a very complicated warmth underneath it all. The slow transition of their relationship from antagonists to almost friends was so well done and makes the ending both satisfying and heartbreaking. There are many side characters as well, and Muir fleshes them all out beautifully and gives a very real sense of them all having their own complete stories going on that we're only getting partial views of. The plot itself was extremely compelling. I liked the turn from a high-stakes competitive quest to a murder mystery. It's a good mystery, too. I guessed small parts of it, but did not see the full resolution coming.
by Tamsyn Muir
A necromancer and a swordfighter from a moribund planet reluctantly team up to join other similar teams in exploring a crumbling gothic mansion/laboratory as part of a quest to become an immortal, powerful servant of the undying Emperor. However, when people start turning up unwillingly and gruesomely dead, the nature of their quest shifts.
This book was a complete delight, albeit a very dark and bloody one. The plot and stakes are very serious but there is a lot of humor, most of it wonderfully dark and sarcastic. Gideon, bad-ass swordswoman and main protagonist, is snarky, irreverent, and gives very few fucks. I loved her. Harrow, her necromancer counterpart, is very troubled but also very brave and tough and possessed of a very complicated warmth underneath it all. The slow transition of their relationship from antagonists to almost friends was so well done and makes the ending both satisfying and heartbreaking. There are many side characters as well, and Muir fleshes them all out beautifully and gives a very real sense of them all having their own complete stories going on that we're only getting partial views of. The plot itself was extremely compelling. I liked the turn from a high-stakes competitive quest to a murder mystery. It's a good mystery, too. I guessed small parts of it, but did not see the full resolution coming.
