... a freaky science-fantasy-horror-romance mash-up that owes its innards to M.A.S.H. and Harry Potter in equal measure; to a thousand Agatha Christie locked-house mysteries and Sweet Valley High. The set-up is genius ... Muir uses the claustrophobia and narrowed focus to fine purpose ... too funny to be horror, too gooey to be science fiction, has too many spaceships and autodoors to be fantasy, and has far more bloody dismemberings than your average parlor romance. It is altogether its own thing — brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through. With a snorting laugh and two middle fingers, the whole thing burns end-to-end. It is deep when you expect shallow, raucous when you expect dignity and, in the end, absolutely heartbreaking when you least expect it.
... an incredibly immersive book, with a rich, detailed mythology, gorgeously balanced sentences, and a genuinely meaningful central relationship ... I started this book chuckling at the outrageous premise. I finished it crying, because the ending punched me straight in the gut ... Muir establishes this complex world so simply and so elegantly that it never becomes overwhelming. She provides just enough exposition to more or less give the gist of what’s going on at any given moment, and her grasp on the narrative is so sure that you can relax as you read... Mostly, Muir lets the plot unfold in the background where you’re not looking, and she lets her characters do the driving. And they are incredibly charming drivers ... Throughout, Muir’s prose is sleek and compulsively readable. She has a genius for sliding her voice seamlessly from Lovecraftian gothic mode into a slangy contemporary mode without ever undercutting one or the other for cheap comedy. Instead, the contemporary mode makes the cast of characters feel familiar and recognizable, the Lovecraftian horror makes the world feel expansive and terrifying, and the slippage between both powers the book forward ... The result is immersive; it demands to be swallowed down in long, luxurious gulps. I devoured it in two days and then spent the next day brooding over it, worrying the characters around in my mind.
... weird-wild-and-wonderful ... fun. To reflect the tone of the book itself: it’s fun as fuck. Muir had a grand ol’ time writing this fast-paced, darkly funny, spookily horrific novel and that shines clear through each line. Gideon is a protagonist after mine own heart. It’s her voice and her perspective that brings the book to vibrant life. Muir balances comedic timing with creeping monstrosity, body horror against mad science, intrigue against friendship against alliance against affection. And, somehow, all of the tropes and sly asides to them work in concert to create a perfect mélange of action, fright, political machinations, and romantic tension ... a fine example of the ways in which a familiar pattern can be used to bring rambunctious life into a plot ... The plot itself is, of course, also great fun ... With one debut book, Muir has leapt up the list of continuations I’m eagerly awaiting—so, while we wait for the next installment of lesbian necromancers, snippy hilarious dialogue, and violent political intrigue, I’ll keep thinking about Gideon the Ninth.
... worth every second of every spine-chilling page as the book moves seamlessly from science fiction to mystery-thriller and back again ... Muir’s attention to numerology, wordplay and symbology here is beyond impressive. Each of the Nine Houses is painstakingly constructed.
Gideon the Ninth is unlike any other book I’ve read recently ... when it comes down to it, it’s really something you have to read to believe ... Muir weaves seamlessly between mystery, intrigue, and quest, and between science fiction and fantasy, to craft the start of a series that rivets and enthralls like the dark and dangerous magic it depicts.
... part of the delight of reading the novel is just how fearlessly it tosses together outlandish ideas with distinct elements from different genres ... Like its eponymous protagonist, Gideon knows what it’s interested in, and that does not include a lot of dry exposition, world building, or backstory ... At times morbid and horrific, at others times exuberantly gross, Gideon the Ninth is incredibly fun. It’s snarky, inventive, and absolutely revels in sexual tension and swordplay ... The lack of explanation might be frustrating for traditional science fiction readers. We don’t learn why the characters use swords instead of guns, much less how exactly magic and interplanetary travel interact. Yet Muir makes Gideon’s adventure-by-adventure experience so integral and seamless that we don’t really need that larger world building spelled out. One area that takes a while to click is the ensemble cast... this led me flipping back to the dramatis personae more than I would like. It’s also hard to grasp the political and militaristic significance of much of the plot ... What keeps Gideon the Ninth barreling along is Muir’s clever exploration of a heavy, frequently horrific plot that is juxtaposed by very modern dialogue and irreverent humor ... remarkably joyful. The snippy banter is great, the action scenes are top-notch, and Gideon emerges as a fully-formed, emotionally realized character. As a result, this allows the book a much greater tonal range than one might expect ... It’s difficult to overstate how fun this book is. The genre-mashing works better than it has any right to ... Rambunctious, unapologetic, and somehow consistently believable, Gideon the Ninth is a fantastic debut.
Foul-mouthed Gideon is a joy to watch as she attempts to pass as a cavalier, falls for one of the competition, and basically spends a hell of a lot of time trying to figure out what’s going on – gradually learning to work with Harrowhark, and maybe even coming to appreciate her. Other characters aren’t always as well delineated, which adds to the confusion at times. This universe is fascinating and the story intense; much remains frustratingly obscure, but intriguingly so. I was seriously starting to question how an empire this decayed could possibly survive, but somehow it all manages to be truly compelling fun. Muir’s impressive first novel offers a heady and macabre mix of science, necromancy, constant danger, and a healthy dollop of Gormenghast-like weirdness like no other.
The feel of Gideon the Ninth is one that may divide readers. It has this really fun and interesting mix of high fantasy language and elements, but with foul-mouthed potty humor and modern idioms (i.e. bag of ass, douchebag, etc.). I loved it; there’s a quirky anti-hero-style deviousness to everyone introduced ... it’s pretty dark in terms of violence and graphic descriptions. I want to make that very clear. The Ninth House is for the dead and dying. There are varying degrees of body horror and definitely vulgarity. Don’t let the lightness of the snark fool you! If you prefer your scifi/fantasy to be on the sillier end of the spectrum, tread lightly here. But I have to be honest and say that there were many parts where I had no clue what the hell was going on ... Gideon the Ninth is a unique and bloody bananapants book, and I do think it’s worth a reader’s curiosity.
... packs very 2019 language tics into the internal dialogue of the eponymous character, Gideon, a liege knight with a love of dumb jokes as large as her biceps. It reads as easily as browsing a Twitter feed (it adds equal parts hyperbole, dark humor, and sarcasm, and then occasionally removes the odd grammer convention), but with the character-based emotional heft of a novel ... doesn’t come across as gimmicky or slipshod. If you enjoy browsing memes or joking with friends, you’ll enjoy this prose ... a totally goony fun page-turner that really needs to be on everyone’s reading list this fall.
Muir’s debut fuses science fiction, mystery, horror, fantasy, action, adventure, political intrigue, deadly dark humor, and a dash of romance with a healthy serving of skeletons and secrets and the spirit of queer joy. This extraordinary opening salvo will leave readers dying to know what happens next.
The story uses a language and voice that some might consider a little bloated and slow, though others will be entranced by it. So its recommended that you read a few pages first to get a feel for whether you’ll like the book or not.
... an epic science fantasy that if delivered into the hands of enough people will set the world on fire as it hasn’t been since The Hunger Games. Brilliance doesn’t come close to explaining Tamsyn Muir’s narrative where no single word is wasted or her engineering of a world with characters that end up belonging to you wholeheartedly even long after the last page. With fierce independence and hysterical wit, and laced with moments of pure heartbreaking tenderness and loyalty, Gideon and Harrow’s relationship simultaneously digs under your skin and tugs at your heartstrings. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
... a bone-rattling scream of glory ... action-packed space sci-fi meets bloody necromantic fantasy, spiked with a nefarious murder mystery, no small amount of humor and an incredibly refreshing daub of queer romance ... Muir blends genre here with a deft, clever hand. The fresh and somewhat bizarre premise is anchored in hot, creative, propulsive prose and a highly addictive protagonist. Gideon is cutthroat and unapologetic, but she’s also a fiercely fun, funny, excellent character, and it’s an absolute joy to see her at the center of this action-packed, death-soaked space romp. Muir crafts original, compelling dynamics throughout her unique cast of characters, as they navigate choice and chance, guilt and rage, secrets and self-loathing ... It’s nothing short of pure bliss to get to experience a fun, vicious, high-stakes sci-fi horrorshow where the protagonist and most of the central cast are well-developed queer women. Gideon the Ninth is a rare thing: a genre-balking, exquisite, black magic sort of adventure. It’s tender at times too, and Gideon is one of my favorite protagonists to come out of sci-fi/fantasy this year. Vindicating and visceral, this one’s a triumph.
When it comes to epic fantasy, it's difficult to imagine a more purely fun read than Gideon the Ninth ... [Muir's] debut novel is startlingly confident. She plunges the reader head-first into an unapologetically strange, complex and frequently disgusting universe ruled by powerful necromancers ... Apart from Gideon and Harrowhark's relationship, Gideon the Ninth is at its most thrilling in its action scenes. Even veteran fantasy readers can expect to be blown away by Muir's sheer creativity, especially in her descriptions of the necromancers at work ... simply one of the best and most original books in recent memory.
a whirlwind of dark fantasy and dark humor, all wrapped up in sarcastic, delightfully sapphic Gideon Nav. The narrative oozes with voice and every sentence rattles with Gideon’s disaffected attitude and the creepiness of skeleton bones ... There are countless gems of dialogue throughout ... The only potential pause in an otherwise flawless narrative is the ending which, while heartwrenching and beautifully rendered, does have strong elements of the Bury Your Gays trope. Whether this will be realized in the sequel remains unclear, and so readers should be aware that the ending is not what most would hope for, but fits thematically within the world ... should be on everyone’s To Be Read pile, particularly readers who enjoy dark fantasy and humor, as well as anyone who has ever yearned for a chance to make their mark in a (skeleton-filled) galaxy.
... a wackadoodle science fantasy that mixes horror, swordplay, creative profanity, space magicians, and sheer good fun. The novel lives or dies with Gideon: the spark and punch of Muir’s debut largely comes out of the tonal ping-pong between her baroque worldbuilding and the cheekily (but not incongruously) contemporary voice of her heroine. Muir catapults her reader into a fully formed universe ... Gideon is terrifically funny and easy to root for, and her plain-speaking snark and crude asides peel the varnish off the coiffured world she inhabits. As Muir shows no mercy with the necromantic technobabble, Gideon’s brawn-over-brains befuddlement allows the reader an opportunity to catch a breath and figure out what the hell is going on. On the other hand, residing in Gideon’s head can be a detriment at times: her no-effs-given attitude extends to remembering the names of her fellow characters, which makes sorting out all seven heirs and their accompanying champions a touch baffling for the first third of the novel ... As the plot picks up speed, however, almost every member of the cast becomes well-defined, interesting, and treated with a sincerity that comes almost as a surprise in a book as proudly sarcastic as this one can be ... smart, fun, and fresh, bursting with thrilling action and derring do, genuinely puzzling puzzles, lots of swears, heaps of yucky dead things, and a storm of skeletons. The wild tonal contrasts and kitchen-sink approach to both the genre and the prose somehow works in symphonic harmony, thanks to an extraordinarily likable heroine supported by Muir’s whip-sharp voice and clockwork plotting ... Consider my bags packed for wherever Muir would like to take me next.
... not a piercing revelation or the perfection of the form ... an interesting novel with some seriously batshit worldbuilding and a strong, compelling voice. It’s also a novel that’s about a deeply unhealthy central relationship, one that left me exquisitely uncomfortable with its ultimate trajectory, and a story that doesn’t do quite enough work to earn the ending of its emotional arc. Gideon the Ninth knows its central interpersonal relationship is seriously fucked up. The ending makes me question whether the book understands how much and in which specific ways that relationship is fucked up, the adversarial abusiveness and weird co-dependence of it all. And because much of the novel is a breezy, punchy, irreverent, gothic necromantic adventure (in space!), the impact of the weird squickiness is dispersed until the very closing pages ... The worldbuilding is delightfully batshit, revelling in its own gothic creations; complex, whimsically allusive. Gideon’s voice is compelling, breezy and irreverent, and possessed of self-aware humour. The deep sense of irreverence means that tonally, despite its claustrophobic setting, psychological manipulation and betrayals, and the mounting death toll, Gideon the Ninth never exactly feels like horror. Only in its showdown between godlike powers at the conclusion does horror’s inescapable tragedy become part of the narrative’s primary argument – and it is here, I feel, that the narrative fails in its interrogation of the central hate-co-dependence-need relationship between Gideon and Harrow, and leaves me feeling very uncomfortable indeed ... This is an ambitious first novel. Whether or not its reach exceeds its grasp, I suspect, lies in its sequels to confirm or deny. But I’ll most likely be reading Harrow the Ninth, because Gideon, for all its flaws, was a very enjoyable read.
... [a] madcap science fantasy romp that manages to be both riotously funny and heartbreaking ... Much as her necromancers do with human remains, Muir effortlessly compiles macabre humor, body horror, secrets, and tenderness into the stitched-together corpse of a dark universe, then brings it to life with a delightfully chaotic, crackling cast of characters and the connective tissue of their relationships. From the mad science joys of necromantic theory to the deliciously ever-evolving tension between Gideon and Harrow, this adventurous novel not only embraces its strangeness but wrings delight from it. The result is an addictive, genre-bending book that will wow readers with its vibrant energy, endearing cast, and emotional gut-punch of a finale.
This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences ... Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
