Wow—I loved this! Gideon the Ninth is a unique take on speculative fiction with a fascinating world, vivid characters, compelling relationship dynamicWow—I loved this! Gideon the Ninth is a unique take on speculative fiction with a fascinating world, vivid characters, compelling relationship dynamics, and a bit of a closed-room mystery—all injected with a lot of humour.
I love the casual queerness of several characters, and I found Gideon, our protagonist, hugely entertaining. While it took me a little while to warm up to her, I really adored her once I did. I loved seeing a little more of the vulnerability underneath her standoffish, sarcastic exterior, and I enjoyed seeing her develop a variety of different types of relationships with the characters she meets, finding connection, friendship, and belonging in a way she had never felt before.
This was also paced very well, in my opinion. I was invested from the first chapter and intrigued the whole way through, and while the plot moved along at a steady pace, it never felt rushed.
I will say that this book does have one of my series' pet peeves: Muir ends this first instalment a bit abruptly, abandoning too many threads to be picked up in subsequent books, leaving me feeling like there wasn't a true conclusion to the first part of the story or any of the character arcs of the first book. In this case, Gideon is our protagonist, and while we have a fantastic beginning and middle for her character arc, we don't really get an end to her journey of internal growth. I would have, at the very least, appreciated a strong hint at her origins, and though I'm sure this will be addressed in future books in the series, I can't help but feel that reveal belonged here as the button to her story, even if there was more to learn or more to be revealed later on.
I also realize that not all characters with dynamic chemistry have to end up together romantically. Still, I must admit I was a bit disappointed that we didn't see (view spoiler)[Harrow and Gideon (hide spoiler)] start a romantic relationship. I do quite enjoy their dynamic throughout the whole book as it evolves and changes; and I especially appreciated how their relationship solidified by the end of the book. I thought it was wholesome, heartwarming, and lovely. But, I am such a romantic at heart that I really wanted them to fall in love romantically. Then again, friendship is fantastic; we love friendship, and this book is, in many ways, an exploration of the many faces of platonic intimacy, so this is not really a drawback. I simply must admit that I was hoping for that throughout the entire book and was kind of sad that it didn't happen!
I was able to foresee many of the twists and reveals here, but there was still enough that surprised me throughout the story that I didn't feel that it was too predictable. There was a nice balance between giving us enough hints to figure out the mysteries ahead of time while still keeping the upper hand as the author to surprise us, and I feel, in general, that Muir did a fantastic job managing all of the mysterious twists and turns!
Anyway, I loved this book, and while the ending did bug me *just* a little bit, I can't help but give it five stars. It is fantastic overall, and I enjoyed the experience of reading it so much that I immediately wanted to jump into the sequel - so I can't be too mad about the loose threads at the end of this installment. I trust Muir to tie them all up through the rest of the series, and in general, I'm excited about this world and his characters and love how unique this story is!
Representation: multiple sapphic characters, including a lesbian MC
Trigger/Content Warnings: violence, blood, death, loss of parents, body horror, suicide, infant and child murder
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