Sci-Fi & Fantasy Girlz discussion

I recently read Gideon the Ninth and really enjoyed it.
I thought I'd mention it here because it is the type of book that would've definitely made it at least to a group read poll.

It's very fun, although I can't say that I loved the writing style, but I really enjoyed the story.

I just put this one on my "to read" list. Shall we start a thread?

Gary wrote: "I just put this one on my "to read" list. Shall we start a thread?"

We could, or we could also use this one for discussion if needed.

I should be able to pick it up in a few days. Looks interesting.

I finished what I was reading (Enemy of God) so I'm picking this one up today. Lookin' forward to getting into it....

Gary wrote: "I finished what I was reading (Enemy of God) so I'm picking this one up today. Lookin' forward to getting into it...."

Yay!
Gideon is a Finalist on this year's Goodreads Choice Awards, but there's tons of other good stuff in that same category.

I'm about 100 pages into this one. I'm suspecting there's going to be a few big twists in the plot. Gideon will turn out to be the secret heir, or Teacher is going to wind up being the Emperor, or such.

Weirdly, it's kind of reminding me of the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake in setting, even though the differences are significant. The similarities are interesting, though: A vast, declining civilization in ruins and decrepitude, a succession crisis, etc.

This is, of course, much more contemporary in tone and dialogue. Gideon's banter and wit seem to make up about a third of the text. I like that Muir got her "call to action" or "rejection of the heroic journey" out of the way right there in the beginning, and that it was framed as more of a foiled attempt to run away than "Oh, but I can't do that, I'm just a poor farmboy" or "Hey, I'm on vacation!" kind of thing.

I'm not 100% sure on where she's going with some of the cavalier stuff, and I think Gideon's facility with a rapier might be a smidge too fast for my sense of verisimilitude. I've just finished the bit where she's dueling (to the touch) with other cavaliers, and there was a lot of buildup in earlier chapters about how she was going to get her ass handed to her given that she's not trained in a one-handed weapon, but she doesn't just hold her own but wins the first fight easily and "wins" the second in practice if not by the rules. In context, that didn't read well when compared to the expectation that the narrative had built up.

I had suspected in that scene that she was going to lose pretty handily, would be underestimated by the rest of the houses on that basis, and later would pick up/find a longsword with which to trounce them when the time came. I'm not sure where she's going with it now, and it could wind up being fine, but that feels like a lost opportunity.

I'm also really curious about the "magic" or "technology" system. She (Muir) dove right into that stuff from page one, so there's something of a steep learning curve that has not yet been terribly well addressed, and though she backs off that terminology a bit, I'm still intrigued. There are a lot of interesting hints about how that works. Gideon's comments about the quality of the skeletons, the preservation of the dead, etc. That stuff kind of fades into the background a bit after the first couple chapters, so I'm wondering how big a deal it will be for the rest of the novel.

What did you think about the author introducing like 20 people in a single chapter? I think she could've done that better.

I loved Gideon's banter. She's witty and a badass, a very cool character.

Yoly wrote: "What did you think about the author introducing like 20 people in a single chapter? I think she could've done that better."

It didn't bother me when I read it, but in retrospect that was something of a jumble. I'm at about the 1/3 point, and some of those characters are getting more attention, so it's OK, but until they get more "screen time" as it were, they don't really track.

Now I think on that, though, I might be on to something with that "screen time" comment. That character introduction bit would be interesting on film/video. Dramatic costumes, elaborate hair & makeup, actors vamping it up as they traipse into the room. I can't say if she was actively thinking that, but I think it would "watch" better than it read....

Once they start doing their exploration and having encounters, the book starts reminding me more of classic RPG/computer game dungeon crawl, and not in a bad way. It makes those sequences familiar and digestible in a way that a comparable scene in Tolkien, for instance, isn't quite. I'm talking about the "door to Moria" chapter there. Tolkien has a monster show up for action, but that scene always struck me as a slow down in the action that needn't necessarily have been like that. A modern version would look more like Muir's scene.

Yoly wrote: "I loved Gideon's banter. She's witty and a badass, a very cool character."

She is entertaining. I've already recommended it to a few folks on that basis.

Interestingly, I was thinking that this book could just as easily be told from Harrow's POV as Gideon's. It would, of course, be a different narrative take on things if she'd gone with "Sherlock" rather than "Watson" but it did strike me at the "dungeon crawl" point that it could easily be either way. I suspect there's a reveal or three that we'll get later that determined that choice.

I finished this one up the other day. It's a lot of fun.

Thematically, I think it's interesting on a couple of levels. The whole world building is an interesting subversion of Christianity, for instance, with the emperor being god/Christ, but in a material sense. The world building could be based on asking the question(s) "What would happen if Christian mythology were true?" along with "...but Christ had stayed around on Earth" and "projected several thousand years in the future."

And, of course, the name "Gideon" is a reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon

In a lot of senses, I got a real gaming vibe off this thing. As in, it seems like Muir was a RPGer who kind of went off on her own to write her novels, but still had certain dynamics in mind when it came to characters. The necromancers themselves are like more contemporary complex game character builds with various permutations of skills and abilities. Their respective magics and powers would, at least, fit neatly in such a system.

Her tone does shift around a bit here and there, sometimes in ways that struck me as awkward, and I don't mean the occasional "that's what she said..." kind of humor. It struck out in my mind, for instance, when someone says "the feces will hit the fan" not just because it seemed like an oddly child-like way of expressing that particular phrase for those characters, but also because it seemed an odd phrase to use when there are other lines that more directly relate to the world building. Other, more necromantic, terms get used sporadically. That happened about 10-20 times during my reading. I didn't make a particular note of them or anything (that feces/fan one just stuck in my mind the most) but in many places I don't think she fully committed, or at least missed opportunities to fully embrace her worldbuilding.

Comparatively, I think we've seen a very small sample of the world building in this one, which makes sense as there are two more at least on the way. I wonder how she's going to pull that off given the conclusion of this one. Gideon could have some sort of (view spoiler)[Obi Wan Kenobi thing going on in the next installment, or since they're all necromancers any kind of apotheosis (hide spoiler)] is possible.

I'll check out the next installment, assuming I don't get turned into bone meal myself before I get my hands on it, that is.

Thanks for the recommend, Y!

I'm about 30 pages from finishing the book, and honestly, I'm amazed. Unless it has an absolutely terrible finale, it's going on my top 5 books of the year. It's unexpected, taking into consideration that I was very, very confused for he first 50 or so pages.

Gary wrote: "She (Muir) dove right into that stuff from page one, so there's something of a steep learning curve..."

For me personally, when I'm thrown in at the deep end, I either end up loving the book or hating the book, with no lukewarm feelings at the end. Fortunately it was the first case here. By the time I hit 100 page mark, it was hard to put down the book.

I also enjoy the very slow burn romance. It just somehow works for me, even if I'm usually not a fan of hate to love trope.

The only problem I have is the language. On one hand we have very complex grammar and uncommon words (I had to look up at least 5 words, even though I consider myself fluent in English and I can go months without not knowing a word). On the other hand, there were sudden additions of vulgarisms or slangish phrases. This broke my rhythm every time.

Gary wrote: "Thanks for the recommend, Y!"
You're welcome! As soon as I read it I thought it was a good fit for this group :)

Banshee wrote: "The only problem I have is the language. On one hand we have very complex grammar and uncommon words (I had to look up at least 5 words, even though I consider myself fluent in English and I can go months without not knowing a word)"

I'm really hoping for more world building on the next book, and also for the author to relax a bit and stop with the flowery prose and just give us another awesome story.

Yoly wrote: "I'm really hoping for more world building on the next book, and also for the author to relax a bit and stop with the flowery prose and just give us another awesome story."

I'd like her to go one way or the other: either go with her more conversational, naturalistic storytelling voice (which she used through most of this novel) or just LEAN right into it, and go hard world-building-specific jargon. But stay consistent either way. It's the inconsistency that I found awkward.

I haven't read much Patrick Rothfuss—just The Name of the Wind—but that had a similar issue. He'd bounce back and forth between a really flowery, even Rococo sentence and then a much more conversational one. I find that distracting. It can work in a certain context (when it's a particular character, for instance, who is "out of place" and has archaic or mannered dialogue) but if it's mostly inconsistent in the narrative then it doesn't work so well.

Yoly wrote: "Gary wrote: "Thanks for the recommend, Y!"
You're welcome! As soon as I read it I thought it was a good fit for this group :)

Banshee wrote: "The only problem I have is the language. On one hand w..."

There's a very, very, very fine line between world building and info dump. Biggest examples of "info dump city" are the five sequels to Jean M. Auel's debut novel The Clan of the Cave Bear (also known as the Earth's Children series). NO ONE needs 7 descriptions PER CHAPTER of what a Neanderthal looks like or how glaciers form or how the glaciers cause a type of soil called loess...etc per book per chapter for EVERY SINGLE BOOK in the series! That's info dump!

I didn't feel dumped on with the world-building in this one. Really, she teased her world building much more than dumped it. There's apparently a vast interstellar empire at never-ending war with, presumably, a like-sized empire that we hear a bit about, but it's not the focus of this novel, even if that backdrop is essentially the reason for the novel's plot. There are moments when she explains things in character or through dialogue, but I don't recall anything that I'd characterize as a gratuitous narrative dump.

For instance, she teases a word "necrosaint" about a quarter of the way in. "Gideon descended like an avenging necrosaint..." What's that? Is that like the death equivalent of an angel? She just dangles it there. We find out towards the end of the book, and it's important. That's some cute world-building.

I think where I have an issue is that she sometimes dips into her character's perspective in the middle of some narrative in a way that I sometimes found a bit awkward. In that same sequence with the "necrosaint" dangle, there's a bit where she's describing the action of a duel:

She snatched her fist back and found that, clutched close, it was whole and unaffected again, but she did not press onward. She wasn't a total goon. She backed away from the necromantic seal and sheathed her sword...

Emphasis added.

That "goon" note is in the middle of a third person narrative, and it reads very much like Gideon's irreverent comments and the third person perspective when we're in her POV. Just a couple paragraphs with some dialogue later we get:

The little torch was quickly flicked off, plunging the whole into further gloom. She yearned to talk, beginning with: How did you do a little flip like that? but the necro brought her up short with:
"You're here about Nonagesimus, aren't you?"

Those italics are in the text.

The "goon" comment tracks like Gideon's voice, but it's in the middle of the narrative, and later we do actually get a bit of Gideon's voice in the narrative, but it's clearly delineated with pronouns, italics and maybe one too many colons. That's what I mean by inconsistent.

I tend to read prose with something of an editorial eye, though, so I don't think it's the kind of thing that would bother most folks. It did make me pause, though, and try to work out who was speaking where and how.

And it's an interesting illustration of the difference between fine world building and infodump.

Another author who I think has a fine grasp of the difference? Jim Butcher, especially with both the Dresden Files and The Codex Alera series. Can't tell you about his world building for his The Cinder Spires series, though. Forgot what world building he did in the first novel of that series, The Aeronaut's Windlass. Why? I don't think I've read it in more than 2 years... .

I guess I MIGHT flip through this book IF I can find it w/o going to Inter Library Loan.