Gideon the Ninth

[lunabee34]

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really, really liked this book.

The protagonist reminds me a lot of Murderbot (if Murderbot were angrier and more foul-mouthed). I would love to see Gideon and Murderbot interact.

I love the world building; there's a part where Gideon thinks a decoration of human teeth is human and beautiful, and I love all those little touches that make the world she inhabits so alien and strange.

I am very much ready for the next book.



View all my reviews




Wow.

This is so damn good. It's very funny and very emotionally affecting and a very good mystery.

I love how much is left unexplained. I still don't understand exactly what the deal is with the Emperor and what he was in danger from all those years ago. Dying to know who the pretty girl in the tomb is. Really want to understand who or what Gideon is; it's hard not to suspect that the note she found actually refers to her or to an ancestor. Who was her mother, and why did she end up in that air shaft? How did she survive the nerve gas? Cytherea says something toward the end that makes me suspect reincarnation is at play (something like "you all never learn even though we do this over and over again" and the way that Gideon is apparently super badass with a sword despite being told over and over again that she's merely mediocre). What happened to Gideon's body and to Cam? I am not discounting that Gideon will come back in a subsequent book. If she can be reunited with her body, Harrow will find a way.

Don't spoil me, but does Harrow the Ninth live up how awesome Gideon the Ninth is?

Comments

[elfin]

In some ways I didn't like Harrow the Ninth as much as Gideon the Ninth, but in other ways it was amazing!

I don't really think it's spoilery to say that Harrow the Ninth is from Harrow's point of view, and I just didn't click with her like I did with Gideon. But the way the story unfolds is awesome, and very mind-fucky and twisty, and I loved that aspect of it.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

That makes sense.

I can't wait to get a glimpse of what Harrow thinks of Gideon; that's going to be awesome.

[kore]

I loved Gideon (the person), but my little Gothy teenaged fucked-up self was Harrow, LOL. (If someone dropped a hat I would make a Harrow mixtape full of Dead Can Dance and lots of Dancing Ferret Discs deep cuts.)

[lunabee34]

Heee.

*pets bb you*

[kore]

I actually had a GIANT jangly collection of old cross necklaces I picked up in thrift shops and I tended to wear them ALL at once, like a big noisy breastplate, plus I had triple ear piercings and a bunch of costume jewelry rings my mother had worn in the sixties. (No makeup tho, and my hair has always defied dye and sprays.) And an attitude you could hammer out iron on. Plus I was obsessed with Artaud and Rimbaud and Baudelaire and Camus and a whole lot of other dead French guys with 'tude. And I had supple knee joints and lumbar vertebrae that weren't squashed. //sigh

[lunabee34]

I had a bunch of old jangly crosses that I had hung all over my bedroom like a vampire's lair. IDK why. I thought they were pretty. LOL

[kore]

OMFG, same "aesthetic" thing. I think at that point I was a die-hard atheist! I don't think I had even met another Goth then! And yet, there I was, with my Cure CDs and a video dub of the Crow.

[elfin]

Ha! I was a little smartass Punk who just wanted to seem tough.

[kore]

Aww! I think that would be Gideon. Gideon would love the Sex Pistols. I wasn't into punk so much back then, that came a bit later, but I LOVED post-punk -- Joy Division, the VU, New Order, Wire, PiL, Sonic Youth....someone stop me before I do a mixtape AU of Gideon and Harrow as mundane AU college freshman roommates torturing each other with their musical tastes. Harrow would be one of those people who listened to des Prez and the Goldberg variations on harpsichord, with all the repeats. Gideon would find a copy of that awful Switched-On Bach album and blast it.