Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) in Do Better: SFF without Sexual Violence

May 17, 2020 Silvana rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-2020-fantasy-novel-novella, dnf-i-just-cant, sff-2020-reading-challenge, audiobooks, hugo-nominees-2020, lgbtqia, fyeahfantasy, freebies, female-nonbinary-authors

First DNF in 2020! I gave it 90 minutes of my life that I'll never get back :(

I did not enjoy any of it. The world building was thin, uninteresting, not sure why it had to have space at all, and why it's classified as SF. Star Wars might have more SF than this.

Anyway, the thing I hated the most are the characters. Could they be more grating. I felt like hitting them with bones whenever they opened their mouths. I read better teenage fantasy than this one, and better banters too. I'm fine with th ...more

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Sep 12, 2020 Beige rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zz-buddy-read, zread-1-scifi, favourites, zread-1-genre-bending

4.5 spooky-corridor-creeping stars

Certainly not without its faults, I fully understand how this book won't work for everyone. I don't begrudge those 1-star reviews. However, I thought it simply oozed with gothic panache. There was so much to love....

🖤 The writing. Its sometimes puzzling descriptive prose, juxtaposed against Gideon's modern snarky dialogue
🖤 The mysterious magic and how easy it was to visualize the parts we were permitted to see
🖤 The world. A dying planet, a crumbling facili ...more

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Sep 15, 2020 Kristenelle rated it it was amazing

Reread: This book is now five stars! I rated it four stars on the first read, but coming back to it after reading Harrow and Nona....it has improved a lot!! I understand Gideon and Harrow's relationship a lot better and it bugs me a lot less now. There is so much foreshadowing here that you can't notice on the first read! And being able to understand all the characters better adds so much depth to the interactions in this book!

This was fantastic! I loved so many things about this.

First of all Reread: This book is now five stars! I rated it four stars on the first read, but coming back to it after reading Harrow and Nona....it has improved a lot!! I understand Gideon and Harrow's relationship a lot better and it bugs me a lot less now. There is so much foreshadowing here that you can't notice on the first read! And being able to understand all the characters better adds so much depth to the interactions in this book!

This was fantastic! I loved so many things about this.

First of all the setting is really interesting and visual and unique.

Second, this reminded me of so many different things in a good way. It was like a Zelda game if Zelda was a necromancer, Link was still Link but also a disgruntled lesbian, and Hyrule was crumbling and gloomy and post-technology. Like, it wasn't just the characters. (view spoiler)

Third, I don't know. I just feel like there should be a third. It was an interesting story with fun characters.

I listened to the audio book and at times I wished that I could be reading a physical copy just so that I could take notes and refer back to the character list at the beginning. However, I loved the audio version. The reader has a really haughty sounding British accent that absolutely adds so much to the experience. Plus, I think I would have struggled with pronouncing the names. The names are wonderfully florid affairs! I LOVED the names of the characters.

(view spoiler)

Thoughts from my reread:

This was a great reread. I followed everything much better this time and actually could remember and keep all the characters straight!

To follow up on my spoiler from my first read...(view spoiler) ...more

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Feb 04, 2023 ♥Xeni♥ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, magic, necromancer, audiobook, 2023-books-read, bingo-22-23, 2025-books-read

What do I even write about this book that no one else has said?

I went into it not really knowing if I'd like it. If it's for me or not. I choose to listen to it via audiobook rather than read, and I used fan art of the characters + the tor.com guide to the nine houses extensively while listening. It helped make sense of a lot of what seems to give other people confusion.

For most of the book I thought "interesting, but where is this going?" There were slow parts. There were many action scenes t ...more

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Jan 09, 2020 Princessjay rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

4.5 STARS

Wow, for creativity and vision, like the finest goth manga saga turned into delicious, delicious words.

The scions of Eight Houses are called to become Lyctors for the Undying Emperor--immortal warrior saints who defend the empire in the stars. Gideo, a foundling of the Ninth House, goes with Harrowhark Nonagesimus to answer the call. In the crumbling palace of the First House, all 16 meet, size each other up, and tries their various ways to tease out the secret that lies at the end of ...more

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Nov 28, 2019 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, sf

This book is level 11 bananapants and what you suggest to someone who wishes there was more of The Library At Mount Char.

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Apr 06, 2021 Rosie rated it really liked it

Rereading Gideon the Ninth with both audiobook and ebook was delightful. I found it much easier to keep track of all the characters and action. I was reminded of how funny this book is! I also enjoy seeing characters move from hatred to love. The necromancy was secondary to my enjoyment of the character development and plot. It’s a locked-door murder mystery, I realized. And oh gosh, the trauma that is held by both main characters. There was so much I liked about this, I’m tempted to read the ne ...more

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Sep 24, 2020 Rosie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There was so much I liked about this book—
Enemies to lovers trope
Queerness
Chivalry
Sword play
Mystery
Conspiracy
Beautiful language
Snark

And yet I could never quite get over the huge cast of characters and the frequent need to consult the character guide, which seriously impacted my enjoyment of the book. The author not only has a long list of characters, she frequently uses different parts of their names or roles to refer to them. I liked the world-building and I don’t mind confusion about that as t ...more

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