Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

The philosophy of many of the characters in Gideon the Ninth is not so much “Life sucks, and then you die” as “Life is filled with nameless, gibbering horrors, and even death will not release you.”  But for a book filled with horrible situations nearly guaranteed to end in death, Gideon the Ninth is a lot of fun.

Take Harrowhark, for example — All but one of the children in the Ninth House died before she was born, and her parents died when she was ten.  That made her the head of the House, an order of decaying great-aunts, nuns praying rosaries made out of knucklebones, and reanimated skeletons.  She also finds herself in charge of the Locked Tomb, making sure that whatever’s in there doesn’t get out.

Then there’s Gideon, the child who survived.  Harrow, the only person her own age, hates her for reasons Gideon doesn’t understand.  Unfortunately for Gideon, Harrow is a necromancer, someone who can (and does) raise an army of skeletons just to torment her.

But they don’t sit around wringing their hands and crying “Woe is me.”  Harrow preserves her dead parents and works them like puppets; that and painting her face in the traditional skull mask and speaking in cryptic utterances convinces the people of the Ninth to follow her, even at her young age.  Gideon trains to be the best swordswoman on the planet.  So when the Emperor summons them and the heirs of the other seven houses to the planet of the First House, they are actually in a good position to survive what’s waiting for them

The Emperor died ten thousand years ago and resurrected himself, becoming enormously powerful.  Then he and those who served him, the Lyctors, disappeared.  Now most of those Lyctors are dead or nearly so, and he is looking for their replacements.  The Lyctors are strong necromancers and very long lived, so naturally there is a lot of jockeying for the position.

But when the representatives of the various Houses get to the Emperor’s planet, they are given a key and almost no further instructions.  Some of them join with other Houses and work together; some go off alone, opening various locked doors.  And one House (or several?) starts killing their rivals.

What we get at this point, among other things, is a sort of murder mystery — though, since the suspects are all necromancers or experts with a sword, the murders are pretty gruesome.  There’s also the complication that several people aren’t who they claim to be.  Gideon suspects Harrow, who Gideon knows to be ruthless and who seems to adapt to the situation far too easily.  But what can she do about it?  Her life has taught her to distrust everyone, so who can she tell?

There’s more than just the mystery, though. After so many years of hated you’d think that nothing could possibly change between Gideon and Harrow, but their relationship is nuanced and believable.  And the writing is supple and startling, creepy when it needs to be but also funny and even tender, moving fluidly between the speech of ancient houses and modernistic idiom.  “Crux advanced like a glacier with an agenda.”  “…it hurt like hell.  It was like having a headache inside her teeth.”  “Harrowhark looked as taut and distant as a hangman’s rope.”  Of a dying woman:  “When she breathed, she sounded like custard sloshing around an air conditioner.”

There are problems with this book, but they’re minor.  One of them is that we’re introduced to all seven houses at once, and I had trouble keeping them straight.  Their surnames do tell you who they are, but they don’t use their surnames all the time.  It’s like one of those Russian novels with their nicknames and patronymics; you’re constantly flipping to the front of the book to find out who’s talking.

Also, Gideon herself is pretty unobservant.  When Harrow goes missing, it takes her two days to notice.  Not exactly the person you want to rely on as the point-of-view character.

Despite this, the book is pretty great.  It’s complex and repays close reading, or several close readings.  I’m not sure I understand all of it even now.  But another pass will have to wait, because I just got my hands on the new book, Harrow the Ninth.