Gideon the Ninth (2019) by Tamsyn Muir, book one of The Locked Tomb series

Started: March 25, 2025
Finished: July 24, 2025

Where do I even begin!! I had a little bit of a rocky start with this book because I, as I often do with various forms of media, started it and then accidentally dropepd it for a number of weeks. Then, I was sort of wading through the intro trying to find my footing, and the putting-down-and-starting-up-again nature of my reading was not helping me to keep shape of the world in my mind (nor to keep track of the characters being introduced). But I finally picked up the pace in June and July, finishing it just towards the end of the month.

I find Muir's worldbuilding really fascinating, and what I began to glean as the story went on left me wanting more. Given that there are two more books in the series, I think introducing the world from Gideon, a relative outsider, was a good way to leave the reader craving more insight on the books' inner workings.

Gideon, our aforementioned narrator, is a young woman who was orphaned in outer space as an infant and taken in (under indentured servitude) by a 'death cult'. I find this to be a funny notion though, considering that her society at large could be classified as a death cult; the solar system's nine planets and their inhabitants follow a way of life completely revolving around necromancy and their immortal godking the Emperor. Each house (the ruling body of each planet) follows a different school of necromancy, introducing some very cool ideas about the system of science and magic they use as well as introducing the 'culture' of each house. The ninth, where Gideon was raised, focuses on bones (specifically the raising and manipulation of skeletons)...as well as guarding the tomb of the Emperor's greatest enemy, its devotees possibly worshipping it more than the Emperor himself.

The main plot here revolves around Gideon (who desperately wants to escape the Ninth) and her only other peer, Harrow (who happens to be a powerful necromancer, heir to the house, and Gideon's nemesis since childhood) traveling to a decaying mansion to search of necromantic secrets left behind by their Emperor and his original followers, in order to achieve an ascended state akin to sainthood and immortality. And then, a murder mystery unfolds!

Gideon and Harrow's relationship is, to me, the grounding force of this book. I was least interested in the story's happenings in Act I, when Harrow was mostly ignoring Gideon and going off on her own to investigate. Some of this time was necessary to get acquainted with the other houses, and to let Gideon have some breathing room to interact with people outside of the Ninth. But this was still the toughest part for me, in no small part because of Gideon's distance from the goal that the others are following, and her being in the dark about the puzzles going on in the house. They made it hard for me to really keep track of the puzzles or the keys or what was meant to be happening, and left me feeling in stasis with the story.

This turned around in a big way for me after Gideon and Harrow team up to complete a puzzle, facing a great skeletal chimera using a little bit of necromantic mind melding. This is a turning point for the story (in that Gideon is being brought into the mystery as an equal) and for their relationship (as Harrow literally sees into Gideon's mind and watches her fight, having to acknowledge that she is extremely talented).

After this I was fully invested. I also began to become very compelled by the relationship of necromancer and cavalier (their trained bodyguard) and the different ways it was displaying itself in the pairs (or trio in one case) who were summoned to the First House by the Emperor for these challenges. I suppose it's in much the same way I find a knight and their fierce loyalty to their charge to be a romantic notion. Not many of these pairings in Gideon the Ninth are romantic in the traditional sense, but there is indeed a crushing devotion often found in the necro-cav dyanmic in one way or another. It seems like the point of these puzzles, at least from the one we see Gideon and Harrow face, is that teamwork between the necromancer and cavalier are fundamental. We see this, as well as that crushing devotion I mentioned, in the vow that Gideon and Harrow take: "one flesh, one end."

This is not exactly what the Emperor was trying to communicate, however, and that vow turns out to be predictably literal in terms of achieving immortality.

I suppose I should have known where it was headed, but the ending still left me a little shell-shocked; I think I was in denial, as it took me re-scanning a few pages to fully digest that Gideon was not physically there with Harrow in the end battle with Cytherea, but rather a last fragment of her spirit before she was engulfed to power Harrow. And how broken Harrow was at the end, how much she did not want to go on without Gideon, it was heartbreaking.

I didn't realize until losing her how much I'd truly grown to love Gideon, which I guess is the audience reflecting the art!! But now is as good a time as any to mention that what I'll miss the most going forward in reading the other two books (which I still have to do at the point of writing this review; haven't gotten to the library or a bookstore yet...) is her humor. It was a great contrast to the severe shadow cast by the tension and horror of the First House, the violence, the terrible revelations.

I'm not sure what to rate this book yet, if I can really quanitfy it with a star rating or not. As soon as I put it down I wanted to reread it, feeling like I finally had a fuller picture of the society Muir was weaving made me want to give it another go around to see what other threads I could connect.

That, and I really, really miss Gideon Nav.

House of Many Ways (2008) by Diana Wynne Jones, part of the Castle series

Started: March 17, 2025
Finished: March 24, 2025

This book shocked me with how easily I became invested. It was an easy read in the sense that I just tore into it, and had a lovely time the whole way through. That's probably pretty evident by the fact that I finished it in just a little over a week.