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

Dec 25, 2020 T rated it it was ok

Shelves: dnf

2. DNF. I can’t understand what all the hype about this book was! I was fortunate enough to undertake it both as an audiobook and text, and the only redeeming part of my collision with this story until I sadly shelved it DNF with a sigh was the incredible narration by Moira Quirk.

Gideon the Ninth has been screamed about by my fellow gothic queers as the book that we’d all been waiting for, and I judged myself for keeping it on my impossibly tall TBR pile for as long as I have. After dragging thr 2. DNF. I can’t understand what all the hype about this book was! I was fortunate enough to undertake it both as an audiobook and text, and the only redeeming part of my collision with this story until I sadly shelved it DNF with a sigh was the incredible narration by Moira Quirk.

Gideon the Ninth has been screamed about by my fellow gothic queers as the book that we’d all been waiting for, and I judged myself for keeping it on my impossibly tall TBR pile for as long as I have. After dragging through these last few hours, I consider putting it off a mercy as I built myself up with solid queer SFF.

I really can’t understand why this book has the praise that it does. While queer necromancers in space should have held me spellbound from beginning to end and left me clamoring loudly for more, the writing style is so absurdly obtuse that there’s no way to enjoy it!

For example:
“Like she’d say no with Harrow’s hands on her strings. With a pallid smile, Pelleamena gently inclined her head in a way she never had in life: alive, she had been as chill and remote as ice at the bottom of a cave. “With my gracious mother’s permission,” said Harrow, and began to read: “ADDRESSING THE HOUSE OF THE NINTH, ITS REVEREND LADY PELLEAMENA HIGHT NOVENARIUS AND ITS REVEREND LORD PRIAM HIGHT NONIUSVIANUS: “Salutations to the House of the Ninth, and blessings upon its tombs, its peaceful dead, and its manifold mysteries. “His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, begs this house to honour its love for the Creator, as set in the contract of tenderness made on the day of the Resurrection, and humbly asks for the first fruits of your household...”
—
What we’re supposed to be getting here is the quest that will, ostensibly (it doesn’t), kick off the rest of the book. It could have been lush, all rich gothic darkness and queer feels, but instead the reader is smothered by a self-indulgent romp through theocratic vocabulary as if the author has something to prove. It’s confusing, it’s boring, it ruins a critical scene when we’re figuring out THE quest.

I could still forgive Muir for word vomiting all over me once, but it doesn’t stop. I assume people like Gideon because she’s a smart ass queer necromancer with depressive tendencies (I’d swipe right) but those moments of really excellent characterization are surrounded by such obscuring word choices and literary circle jerks that Gideon’s characterizations (which almost always involve obscenity) seem at odds with the novel’s structure. It kept jerking me around as the reader and left me unable to even enjoy Gideon because she didn’t fit into the story around her AS ITS MC because of the author’s bizarre and broken narrative choices, and circle jerking.

Another thing that gets this only two stars is because the way Muir wrote queer space necromancy wasn’t very creative. It was great for her to string the idea together, but I don’t think she took them anywhere that deserves all this praise. Without giving spoilers, the rep is uninteresting and predictable and we deserve better. She may have brilliant ideas, but if they can’t be disentangled from an overwhelming and circle jerking train wreck of verbiage that SHOULD be captivating us with a complex necro-spirituality and a cast of witty and dynamic characters, what’s the point? ...more

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Mar 27, 2022 literaryelise rated it it was amazing

Shelves: wtr-fantasy-sci-fi, sapphic-books

RTC but for now all I’ll say is what. the. fck.

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Nov 26, 2019 MeowMeowBooks rated it did not like it

It was an interesting story, I guess, but in no shape or form does it live up to the hype that's being generated by Tor and certain readers. I came away from it pretty disappointed. The world building is lacking, it was tiresome to be in Gideon's head, and the so-called competition/trials thing to be SuperNecro was a complete let-down.

The best thing about this book is the cover. The first few chapters made me want to give up on this multiple times. A number of character names are beyond ridiculo ...more

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Jan 08, 2021 J rated it did not like it · review of another edition

The biggest bait-and-switch read of the year?
I think the reason this book is so well-loved must at least be partially because the idea of the book, or the potential of what the book could be in an ideal reality, is so alluring. I had several problems with getting into this:

1. It's just boring. Nothing really happens for at least half the book, but I don't feel that the characters are developed enough so that I start caring about them either. The main character, Gideon, spends all this time bein The biggest bait-and-switch read of the year?
I think the reason this book is so well-loved must at least be partially because the idea of the book, or the potential of what the book could be in an ideal reality, is so alluring. I had several problems with getting into this:

1. It's just boring. Nothing really happens for at least half the book, but I don't feel that the characters are developed enough so that I start caring about them either. The main character, Gideon, spends all this time being reluctant and confused, which was also true for me as a reader because...

2. the book is super confusing. The world is not clearly described to me. I don't understand what sort of society this is, who really rules, what position the nine houses have and why it matters who wins the trial thing. I just can't buy that this is somehow by design. It feels like this probably was a clearly developed world in the author's mind and she just forgot that to the reader it's all new and I don't see the whole picture without more explanatory worldbuilding. There are many descriptions and somehow I still can't picture it, and the most important parts for me to care about this world are completely left out. What are the politics? What is their religion really? How do regular folk live? How is necromancy a part of the world and society?
I can't help but compare this to the Broken Earth trilogy which I read recently, and which left me with clear answers to all these questions. Broken Earth even had a glossary at the back of the book which I didn't once need to look at because I could understand the society, natural world and concepts just from context in the story alone.

3. Why can they travel to other planets but still have to fight with swords? Why is this both the middle ages and the far future? I enjoy foreign worlds, but they have to make sense on a technological development level. I guess this just is more of the last point.

4. This book had me reaching for the dictionary more times than I can remember with any book I've read as an adult. Sure, I could have just ignored all the quaint adjectives, but there were too many and it started to annoy me that I didn't know them, so my reading was interrupted regularly by looking things up. To add insult to injury, after having read the definition and example sentences in the dictionary, more than once I was left with the feeling that the word in question was used in a slightly wrong context in the book, which seems like even the author wasn't too familiar with it! At least one adjective wasn't even in the dictionary and most of the Google results are from this book. I just had to get this off my chest, because I can't even remember being bothered by this problem in any English-language book I've read before. It must not be me, it must be the book.

5. This point, I think, is illustrative of how wishful fans see a lot of qualities in this text that simply aren't there: The book is not only marketed, but described by most reviewers as having a lesbian romance subplot between the main characters. It does not.
(Shoot me if you think that was a spoiler. The people need to know the truth.)

6. The main character tries very hard to be funny and edgy, but to me the humor falls completely flat. I wold probably have enjoyed this aspect of the books more if I was half my age, though. I also find it nigh impossible to believe that any character that is 18 years old is a complete badass. Also on account of my being an old fart myself. There is a reason why I don't read YA. Unless I missed something, this was not marketed as YA, but then again, everything people say about this book seems to be a lie. ...more

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Mar 05, 2020 Ergative Absolutive rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, scifi

God, this book is SO GOOD. The narrative VOICE, the MOOD, the CLUES. It's a revelation returning to it after having read Harrow, and when I turn to reread Harrow I expect to catch a lot more nuance than I did the first time round. And then I can move straight on to Nona! What a great few days I have ahead of me. ...more

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