Y’all really got me with this one! Bothari43 first grabbed my attention with an excellent review/cat pic combo, then Bea Pants increased my interest with promises of broad swords and dirty magazines. I don’t usually read much Science Fiction/Fantasy, but after the surprise hits of new favorite Becky Chambers (whom I would not have found without the help of Cannonball), I decided to give it a go!
I was wary at first of the breakdown of Houses; I am often scared off by complex mythologies, political entanglements, and scores of courtly names and titles. Keeping so many pieces in play is often overwhelming for me. I only have so much memory space available for names; I can barely keep track of all of the staff that I train, haha.
Luckily I pushed through the cast list, because it was love at first skeleton! Gideon is a hoot, Harrow is 100% That Bitch, and the collection of adepts, cavaliers, and well- skeletons that populate this strange world caught me by the collar and did not let go. My husband took a look at the cover and gave me a look of his own; Gideon the Ninth looks like “his sort” of book (epic tomes with epic names and archaic arcane systems) and immediately asked me to tell him what it was about. I struggled at first; I was only a few chapters in and still immersing myself in the world.
Things clicked into place for me once the Necromancers and their bodyguards all convened in the creepy First House- It’s CLUE! In FUTURE FANTASY SPACE! A cast of weirdos who keep their cards close and their enemies closer are all called together for cryptic reasons? They’ve been invited to a grand but terrible space? Bodies are piling up? Everyone is funny?
Gideon the Ninth is Miss Scarlett in the Atrium with an Army of the Dead!
Thanks for getting me hooked into another series, Cannonballers! I will be sending you an invoice for my local bookstore ; )