primeideal

The "setting change" subset of "alternate universes" is a very common supertrope in the fanfiction world. It generally consists of lifting canon characters who the reader already knows into a different setting than the one in canon. Part of the appeal is seeing how the existing dynamics and relationships between the characters transfer into this new setting. What if Finn was in awe of Rey's talents and ashamed of his past association with Kylo Ren--but they were baseball players instead of space travelers? What if Les Amis de l'ABC were protesting against the 21st-century republic of France, rather than the July Monarchy? Etc. Some of these can fall flat if you're interested in more plot and worldbuilding than emotional beats in a potentially mundane world, but if the emotional beats are the selling point, then they can be very alluring.

"Gideon the Ninth" had been on my radar for a while as "that book about lesbian necromancers in space," which all things considered is a pretty catchy tagline. I'd also osmosed that the narrative voice, with its heavy use of contemporary slang/idioms, turned some readers off of the story. In my case, I found it to be a downside but not a dealbreaker. (It starts in the second paragraph, when Gideon leaves a stolen key "considerately on her pillow, like a chocolate in a fancy hotel," and continues with a character exhibiting "resting bitch face," "that's what she said" jokes, etc. There's also a joke that I'd originally heard a long time ago, in reference to John the Baptist and Winnie the Pooh, and correctly realized it was the same punchline. You'll know it when you see it.)

The problem is that "lesbian necromancers in space," while memorable, doesn't tell you anything about the actual plot. So to briefly attempt a summary: the first chunk introduces us to Gideon, who is more-or-less stuck in the dreary Ninth House (each House has their own planet in the solar system), and Harrow, the necromancer heir to the House. Gideon keeps trying to run away, Harrow keeps thwarting her, and so for obvious reasons Gideon is not predisposed to like Harrow very much. But then fate intervenes: the Emperor is summoning two representatives from each House, a necromancer and their accompanying Cavalier (warrior), because he needs to promote some new assistants, and maybe people who prove their worth in some mysterious trials will be worthy of being his aides. Harrow's actual cavalier chickens out, and since Gideon is the only other remotely qualified candidate, they reluctantly agree to face these trials even though they can't stand each other.

And that's when things get good, because now instead of "Gideon hates the Ninth House and wants to escape," we now have eight necromancer-cavalier pairs (helpfully listed in a Character List at the beginning) each trying to solve the mysteries of the First House and potentially prove themselves. It's a little bit of Hunger Games (pairs are identified by their House number, so Gideon is just "Gideon the Ninth," there are no rules and you can totally murder people if you think it'll help you get ahead!) meets The Westing Game (there are no rules and you can totally collaborate with people if you think it'll help you succeed and solve clues together! also there's this weird creepy old house) meets the Aes Sedai-Warder bond from Wheel of Time (necromancers and cavaliers have complementary skill sets, but together, they're much greater than the sum of their parts). I had barely managed to osmose any of this, and I was absolutely here for it! If there's one thing the setting is not, it's "mundane, boring, as familiar as a 21st century Earth coffeeshop."

Oh, and when I say "necromancy," I don't mean "can talk to ghosts" or even "reanimates dead corpses on occasion." I mean necro-mancy, as in, a complex and wide-ranging magic system that has to do with dead bodies. Harrow is an expert in bone studies, and regularly conjures skeletons to do her bidding from small bone fragments. The other Houses are also experts in their various disciplines. There is a lot of gore and gross-out descriptions, and although I'm kind of squeamish about that, the originality was definitely impressive.

The problem is that, while the puzzle and exploration plot is great, the emotional plot wants to be a setting-change AU, except I don't have a predefined conception of these characters. Gideon insists that she hates Harrow, but her actions show her responding to Harrow in danger. Harrow almost always calls Gideon by an insulting nickname, and only uses her real name in terms of emotional intensity. They dress up to go to a fancy party, regularly have to paint their faces to be stylish even though Gideon hates it, and have a scene that's like "we're going to talk about our feelings now, but we have to get into the swimming pool when we do it, because it's tradition." I recognize what all these beats are doing, because they're the same beats that show up in (often lower-stakes) AU fics. When Harry and Draco are reluctantly attracted to each other, I'm willing to buy into the premise that "they've always disliked each other," even if Draco's parents aren't literally agents of the dark wizard who left Harry an orphan in this setting. Here, Gideon and Harrow's backstory is an informed attribute, rather than something that readers assume at the start. Fairly late in the story, we get more flashbacks as to where their enmity stems from--and there's some heavy stuff there, when it comes to how much guilt people feel for things they can't control!--but it feels more like "deliberately withheld for the sake of drama" than "this was the natural place to explain this."

This will be a "my diamond shoes are too tight" take, but this was the first book (hopefully of many!) I read on my e-reader, and in retrospect I should have been more assertive in figuring out "okay how do I jump back to that list of names," there are a lot of characters and it's not always easy to tell your Twos from your Eights. There are also a couple appendixes which could be read earlier on--in particular, the Second House's longer list of characters and motivations might have been a good way to flesh out (pun not intended) some of them. However, the authors' notes on character names and pronunciations should not be read until the book is finished, it's spoilery. (Muir mentions that one of the in-universe historical figures is named Matthias after the Redwall hero, and in the acknowledgements, that she got her start writing Animorphs fanfic at age 11, so I am predisposed to be very fond towards her even if the book itself didn't entirely work for me.)

When there are so many characters, and so much to explore, being stuck in Gideon's POV can feel limiting, especially when Harrow isn't deigning to give her the time of day. For a while, I wanted the story to jump around more, both to help me get a more vivid image of some of the minor characters and also to see different perspectives on the puzzle-solving. (I also wanted this from Hunger Games.) Once hidden motivations and secrets become revealed, then it's like, I can see why that might not have worked. There are also several times when a character is interrupted mid-sentence revealing something important, and then Gideon thinks "we never got to find out what X thought was so important," which after a while gets annoying.

But the prose is at its best when it filters things through Gideon's POV that she's never seen on the Ninth House--bathtubs, swimming pools, even normal day/night cycles! And amid the memes, there's still humor I appreciated:

...the Eighth House necromancer...could not be accused of having the milk of human kindness flowing through his veins. He did not even have the thin and tasteless juice of feigned empathy.

There would be some litany of how breakfast would take place every morning at this time, and then there'd be some study with the priests for an hour, and then Skeleton Analysis, and then History of Some Blood, and Tomb Studies, and then, like, lunchtime, and finally Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone. The most she could hope for was Swords, Swords II, and maybe Swords III.

Overall, the action plot was more interesting than I'd osmosed, and the character plot less so. Hopefully if you're curious, this helps you make a more informed decision than just 'lesbian necromancers in space!" Though that's still pithy.

Bingo squares: /r/fantasy's LGBTQIA list, Name in the Title.