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yuuagoFinished reading Gideon the Ninth.
This book deeply appeals to my inner teenage goth. Necromancy! Dark ambiance! Skull face paint! A snarky, lovable, sword-weilding protagonist!
As a character, Gideon appeals to me on so many levels. Her POV is just so fun - I love the terrible puns, her casual way of speaking, her sunglasses, the very enthusiastic way that she's totally into women. I just love everything about her. Delightful dorky sword butch. <3
(While we're on the subject of characters that I like, I also adored the duo of the Sixth house. Initially, Palamedes and Camilla seemed like odd authorial name choices for a pair of nerds, and I wondered if the references were deliberate. I was delighted to realize that they were perfect names for these particular nerds.)
This book was sold to me as "lesbian necromancers in space". Well, there is some f/f, but only one half of the pair is a necromancer, and they don't spend much time actually in space, though the entire novel does take place in a planetary system other than our own. Also, people neglected to mention (until Kiraly did, after I started reading) that this novel has mystery elements! I wouldn't call it a whodunit, but there are mysteries to be solved and Things that one needs to get to the bottom of, so to speak. ...This is an important element that I really should have known beforehand, considering the rate at which I devour mystery novels.
While reading it, I was a constant state of :D :D :D right up until... nearly the end, honestly, when it turned D: extremely quickly. For a while there I was thinking "Damn, I'm going to have to borrow the second novel immediately" but now that I've actually finished the first, uh, I think I can wait a while before I read Harrow the Ninth actually.
Okay, honestly I was EXTREMELY UPSET about what happened with Gideon, though now that I've thought about it for five minutes, I realize, yeah, that was set up, honestly. I don't like it, but that death sure was a thing that was coming. I REALLY DO NOT LIKE IT but... yes.
And! The final body sharing - or, maybe it's Harrow's imagination/perception that they're one, I'd have to check to be sure - regardless... gahh, rip my heart out and stomp on it, why don't you.
I'll confess, part of the reason I'm going to put off reading the second book (until I finish the other three that I currently have out) is that I honestly don't like Harrow very much in and of herself. Gideon is a DELIGHT and I would happily read ten books with her as the POV character regardless of whether Harrow was there or not. But Harrow doesn't spark much interest in me unless Gideon is there too, so the prospect of Harrow without Gideon is... well, it's a book that I can wait to read, rather than devouring immediately.
I think it's partly because when we first meet Harrow, she's just too mean. It's not just that she's an unpleasant person; it's that I quickly fell in love with Gideon as a character, and since Harrow made My Fave's life hell for so long, I find it hard to come around to her. If Harrow were just cranky and sharp and ill-tempered, that would be one thing (I love cranky and sharp and ill-tempered magic users) but we have the entire weight of her precanon hate-hate relationship with Gideon to deal with, and Iiii find it very hard to like her, knowing all that.
However. I will admit that the good scenes we get with Harrow and Gideon in Canaan House are Very Good Indeed, and I ate that stuff up with a spoon, so... uhhh I guess I can't complain all that much.
Before I read the novel, I came across one person discussing how they were disappointed in the lack of physical intimacy between Gideon and Harrow. And... yeah, I think I agree with that to some extent. Like, the emotional stuff is intense, and we get a couple of hugs. But the only lip-kiss - the one in the pool - is implied, and offscreen. And I just feel like... ma'am, you could have put that on-page. I know that's pretty rich coming from me, considering I love to imply shit and hint at things and so on, but I feel like it would have added something.
Anyway. At the end, all of the characters that I liked best are dead, and I am a MESS.
I can foresee myself looking for fic in the near future (or at least, stuff written before the second book came out, anyway - I'm going to wait, but I don't want to spoil myself for it either). Worldbuilding and fix-its, oh my! Got any recs, flist?
This book deeply appeals to my inner teenage goth. Necromancy! Dark ambiance! Skull face paint! A snarky, lovable, sword-weilding protagonist!
As a character, Gideon appeals to me on so many levels. Her POV is just so fun - I love the terrible puns, her casual way of speaking, her sunglasses, the very enthusiastic way that she's totally into women. I just love everything about her. Delightful dorky sword butch. <3
(While we're on the subject of characters that I like, I also adored the duo of the Sixth house. Initially, Palamedes and Camilla seemed like odd authorial name choices for a pair of nerds, and I wondered if the references were deliberate. I was delighted to realize that they were perfect names for these particular nerds.)
This book was sold to me as "lesbian necromancers in space". Well, there is some f/f, but only one half of the pair is a necromancer, and they don't spend much time actually in space, though the entire novel does take place in a planetary system other than our own. Also, people neglected to mention (until Kiraly did, after I started reading) that this novel has mystery elements! I wouldn't call it a whodunit, but there are mysteries to be solved and Things that one needs to get to the bottom of, so to speak. ...This is an important element that I really should have known beforehand, considering the rate at which I devour mystery novels.
While reading it, I was a constant state of :D :D :D right up until... nearly the end, honestly, when it turned D: extremely quickly. For a while there I was thinking "Damn, I'm going to have to borrow the second novel immediately" but now that I've actually finished the first, uh, I think I can wait a while before I read Harrow the Ninth actually.
Okay, honestly I was EXTREMELY UPSET about what happened with Gideon, though now that I've thought about it for five minutes, I realize, yeah, that was set up, honestly. I don't like it, but that death sure was a thing that was coming. I REALLY DO NOT LIKE IT but... yes.
And! The final body sharing - or, maybe it's Harrow's imagination/perception that they're one, I'd have to check to be sure - regardless... gahh, rip my heart out and stomp on it, why don't you.
I'll confess, part of the reason I'm going to put off reading the second book (until I finish the other three that I currently have out) is that I honestly don't like Harrow very much in and of herself. Gideon is a DELIGHT and I would happily read ten books with her as the POV character regardless of whether Harrow was there or not. But Harrow doesn't spark much interest in me unless Gideon is there too, so the prospect of Harrow without Gideon is... well, it's a book that I can wait to read, rather than devouring immediately.
I think it's partly because when we first meet Harrow, she's just too mean. It's not just that she's an unpleasant person; it's that I quickly fell in love with Gideon as a character, and since Harrow made My Fave's life hell for so long, I find it hard to come around to her. If Harrow were just cranky and sharp and ill-tempered, that would be one thing (I love cranky and sharp and ill-tempered magic users) but we have the entire weight of her precanon hate-hate relationship with Gideon to deal with, and Iiii find it very hard to like her, knowing all that.
However. I will admit that the good scenes we get with Harrow and Gideon in Canaan House are Very Good Indeed, and I ate that stuff up with a spoon, so... uhhh I guess I can't complain all that much.
Before I read the novel, I came across one person discussing how they were disappointed in the lack of physical intimacy between Gideon and Harrow. And... yeah, I think I agree with that to some extent. Like, the emotional stuff is intense, and we get a couple of hugs. But the only lip-kiss - the one in the pool - is implied, and offscreen. And I just feel like... ma'am, you could have put that on-page. I know that's pretty rich coming from me, considering I love to imply shit and hint at things and so on, but I feel like it would have added something.
Anyway. At the end, all of the characters that I liked best are dead, and I am a MESS.
I can foresee myself looking for fic in the near future (or at least, stuff written before the second book came out, anyway - I'm going to wait, but I don't want to spoil myself for it either). Worldbuilding and fix-its, oh my! Got any recs, flist?
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-11 03:24 am (UTC)I'm so glad I got around to reading this one; it was so much fun. :D
no subject
Date: 2021-02-11 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-12 02:50 am (UTC)Pretty much the only thing that I know about book 2 is that it's written in second person, which is kind of interesting to me because most of the regular novels that I've seen with it (rather than CYOA stuff) were all... Very Pretentious Literature, so it'll be neat to read a scifi novel with that and see how it's handled. But that's just mild curiosity, not something I need to look at Right Now. xD