Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Series, 1)

Dark. Interesting world of necromancers and their cavaliers. The first part was slow going, but once Gideon and Harrow left home it was better.

- One thing that really shines through is how much Muir clearly loves her characters and takes great joy in creating them and then running them through the gauntlet, which is an entire mood. I spent way too long just sort of delightedly reading the cast list, and then equally delightedly discovering the appendix where Muir talks about the reasoning behind her name choices with just enough self deprecation to suggest she takes this all exactly the right amount of seriously, and we probably should too.

- Having gobbled this up in 5 days, I understand why this book seems to be polarizing in terms of experience, from either “what the fuck is this, what is going on, what is this plot, DNF baybeeeee” to rapturous swooning, and I fall into the latter. This book is as silly as it is sincere, and somehow it juggles those two things really well while maintaining a consistently dark and rather dreadful atmosphere. Yeah, the narrative voice isn’t everyone’s cup of tea—and is jarring in a story you might expect to find presented in a voice that is more, uhhh....comfortably adult?—but considering Gideon is herself still something of a shitty teen, it worked for me and made me laugh out loud more than once. Edgelord lite? Maybe. But Gideon is a bit of an edgelord, and frankly, most of the time it comes off as a defense mechanism that’s entirely fitting for her character.

- I balked a bit on seeing how many characters we’d be dealing with (even as I was also delightedly being a name etymology nerd), but you know what, they’re great, and several of them are downright lovable. It’s a steep learning curve for a chapter or two, but after that point everyone is distinct and has their own shit going on, and more than once I found myself surprised by or really feeling for even the characters I largely couldn’t stand. Everyone’s got their own distinct motivations, and they’re consistent, at times infuriatingly so.

- I’d have liked a bit more clarity on how necromancy works in this universe. It’s painted broadly as a practice that has several fields of speciality within it, which may or may not be specifically tied to particular houses but is maybe also a bit looser than that? (And will probably be somewhat clearer on a rereading or when I read HtN.) So we’ve got bone shit, flesh shit, liminal shit, soul shit, etc...which is all really cool, I just would’ve liked to have a stronger sense of what the characteristics and parameters of each are, particularly when it came down to the final fight and started to feel a bit like a free for all. Which, idk, maybe that’s part of Lyctorhood, actually.

- Speaking of Lyctorhood, I was getting a strong sense of where all the tests were going by the time the end goal was revealed, but the scene where we find out what the actual mechanism of becoming a Lyctor is was still sufficiently and deliciously chilling and gross as hell.

- I went into this with generally high expectations (which is dangerous and often leads to disappointment), but also vague ones beyond “lesbian necromancers”—which sort of turned out to be more like “a Gormenghast-esque escape room in space, with necromancers, but also Clue, but also a generous helping of Cronenberg-level splatter and body horror, and real pathos delivered with withering cynicism and juvenile sex jokes because our perspective character is an emotionally stunted murderous teen who has been surviving trauma and abuse since infancy.” Anyway, turns out vague expectations were good because this is probably one of my top three books I read this year in terms of sheer enjoyment and eagerness to continue the series.

- Sex Pal. Yes, I will be reading the Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex, and yes, this is my formal request to have any and all Palamedes and Camilla content pumped directly into my veins.

Sometimes I think about the fact that I’ll never be able to experience reading this for the first time again and then I’m sad. It’s just that good.

What a delight… …also I’m now devastatingly sad.

Read it in one sitting. Need to do a reread before continuing the series.