Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the first in a planned quartet of The Locked Tomb series. This book gets a lot of buzz for its forward thinking lesbian plotlines and mashup of genres.  It was #7 of r/fantasy's list of top books by women this year, which is how it came across my radar.

Summary: We're introduced to a world in which there are nine Houses (each representing a planet? unclear to me) and each House specializes in a type of necromancy.  The Emperor needs some super-powered necromancers called Lyctors and is going to hold a contest at the First House among the leaders of the Houses and their cavaliers.  We follow Gideon Nav, an orphan of the Ninth House, who reluctantly becomes the cavalier to Harrowhark Nonagesimus.  They travel to a falling apart mansion where they begin competing against the Houses' adepts and cavaliers. Puzzles and fighting ensure.

The Good: The tone of this book is quite interesting. Gideon is full of one-liners and wit and I really enjoy her as a character. 

I enjoy that this is a sci-fic/fantasy/romance mashup.  I really found the elements of space travel and magic with the necromancy to be quite fun.  I liked reading the variety of necromantic specialties. That seemed fresh and new to me. The romance element was very meh to me, but I'm all about queer representation in genre, so I'll allow it.  The fact that 

The Bad: Everything else?  Look, this is the third or fourth time I've tried with this book and it took everything I had to power through it.  Muir's world building is really confusing and there are approximately a dozen adepts/cavaliers from other worlds to figure out what. Much of this is actually an easy fix - a chart of the nine Houses, a quick exposition dump from a teaching figure, and I'd be all set.  Unfortunately, it just leads to me spending five times as long as I need to on each scene to try to look up who is who and who is in the scene and who is allied with who and the whole thing made me very, very tired.

There are a lot of action scenes that were impossible for me to follow. Don't get me started on the quick turnaround Gideon has with Harrow from enemies to bestest friends/lovers.  The premise of this book is amazing, but the execution left me cold. I suspect I am not smart enough for this book and that makes me sort of grumpy towards it. 

Notable line:

"Life is a tragedy," said Dulcinea. "Left behind by those who pass away, not able to change anything at all. It's the total lack of control...Once somebody dies, their spirit's free forever..." (page 292)