The first time I saw the cover of Gideon the Ninth by Tasmin Muir, I didn’t think it was for me. There’s a dark skeletal figure, surrounded by even more skeletons, and between that and the illuminated manuscript font I was getting serious goth vibes. I wasn’t sure what awaited me beyond that cover, but it was dark and scary and full of bones, and I said no thanks.
Had I looked a little closer, I would have seen that the central figure was wearing aviator sunglasses.
It wasn’t until I saw a comment on a Reddit thread about the strangest books people had ever read that my interest was piqued enough to exceed my reservations. The comment (which I wish I could find) said something about how the genre of the book kept subverting itself. A mix of fantasy and science fiction, and you think it’s going to be an academy drama, oh no actually its a murder mystery, um on second thought this might be a Hunger Games style bloodbath.
I was intrigued, and decided to give the book a second look. And praise be to the Emperor Undying that I did.
Was I right about the skeletons and goth vibes? Yes. But Gideon the Ninth also presents a world unlike any other I’d encountered before, unique in vision and voice. A world that blurs genre distinctions and is, of course, totally Science Fantasy Awesome.
So what I’d like to do is look at the first chapter of Gideon the Ninth from the perspective of a first time reader and the ways in which the word choice creates this science fantasy who-knows-what-is-happening feeling. I won’t discuss anything that’s not mentioned in the first chapter, so that should count as spoiler-free, unless you’re an absolute spoiler hardass.
“In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death—”
The first sentence immediately sets up a regal, sanctimonious tone that might be the opening to a classic fantasy book, although “Prince of Death” might give us pause.
“Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines”
And here we have our first record-skip moment, a sensation we will be quite familiar with before this book, or even this chapter, is out. The fact this character has dirty magazines sets her immediately against her formal environment, as if she doesn’t belong. She is immediately a maverick, an outsider. Also that these are the only three items she packs tells us something about her plans and priorities.
Gideon continues to get ready. Our next clue comes at “church robes,” which reinforces the clerical opening, as does “cell.” Actually “cell” is doing two things — evoking both monk’s quarters and a prison cell, the combination being a fairly accurate description of Gideon’s situation.
We learn that this place is dark for months at a time (spooky) and that you “tell the season by how hard the heating vents [are] creaking.” This is the first mention of a piece of technology (beyond magazines, I suppose), and this sentence does a lot of work to set up ideas that are clarified later. First, mentioning the seasons in conjunction with the heating system implies an essentiality and a ubiquity to this technology beyond mere comfort. Second, the fact that these heaters are creaking means that they are not being well-kept. Whatever advances have been made, the systems are decaying.
Gideon dresses herself in “polymer and synthetic weave,” which implies another available technology. This, with the heating vents, stands in contrast to “church robes” and “cell,” so by the time we get to “security cuff,” we’re not sure if it is meant to be a crude iron manacle or something with blinking lights. It’s not clarified, so we’re left to imagine. Gideon leaves the key “on her pillow, like a chocolate in a fancy hotel,” and we have our first hint of ironic humor which will become very familiar by book’s end.
Gideon goes to visit her “mother’s nameless catacomb niche,” which gives us more spooky church vibes. (There’s more to be mined here but since we don’t know anything about Gideon’s mother yet we’ll have to come back.) That Gideon goes down five flights of stairs and then up twenty-two illustrates the verticality of this space.
She waits for a “shuttle,” which presumably means a spacecraft, but given the ambiguity so far we can’t be entirely sure. The mention that the “atmosphere is pumped in” reinforces the idea from the heating vents that this place can only support life by technological intervention, which gives the environment a hostility in addition to the darkness which is continually emphasized.
This brings us to the end of the first page.
Gideon hangs out on the “landing field,” which we are fairly sure is meant for a spacecraft, but this field is in a cold and rocky cave, albeit surrounded with “generator lights” with “wire-meshed frames.” Again: high technology, sparsely available, in a harsh environment. This is re-emphasized with her snack from “little plastic bag of porridge.”
At this point, we might feel like we’re settling into a gritty space opera with religious motifs, and we might feel comfortable. We would be wrong.
“…the faraway upward clatter of the skeletons going to pick mindlessly at the snow leeks…”
Um, what? Like, genuine skeletons? Maybe that’s just the word they use to describe their robots.
“…eyes a multitude of wavering red pinpricks.”
Right! Robot eyes, right? Red robot eyes.
Nope. Spoiler: they are legit skeletons. Like, dead people bones brought back to life. And there are more to come. A lot more. This tips the needle very much toward fantasy with necromantic magic, and a specific gothic vibe that is already very clear.
The bell rings for morning prayers, just as in a church, and this reinforces the sacred tone. “Castle Drearburh” makes us wonder if this is just straight-up fantasy? No, it can’t be, because of the spaceship that’s coming. Right?
We meet another character, Crux. Gideon’s swearing and casual language stands in contrast to Crux’s formal speech, and illustrates the differences between them. We don’t know enough yet to say if Crux is representative of the rest of this place or not, but if he is, the contrast serves to reinforce the sense that we already have that Gideon does not belong here. Gideon’s mention of her pornographic magazines once again comes in conflict with the sacred sensibilities of the Ninth.
“More decrepit alive than some of the legitimately dead” gives us the sense that the dead linger on in this place, which makes sense, because we already know that there are living, working skeletons.
“Gideon suspected that—even though he had not a whit of necromancy in him—the day he died, Crux would keep going anyway out of sheer malice.”
The word necromancy helps orient us specifically to a genre we suspected we might already be in. This phrase introduces the idea that some people have magic and some people don’t, a common fantasy trope, while also repeating the idea that here, the line between the living and the dead is not a clean one.
There’s a bit of threatened swordplay, which always gets me excited in a book that also has spaceships. Crux threatens to turn parts of Gideon’s body into paper and cleaning implements, which introduces the idea of the physical body as a mere resource to be transformed and used for work, which will be explored later as our understanding of necromancy deepens.
Crux leaves and we have an encounter with Aiglamene, Gideon’s sword teacher. We don’t get many more genre clues in this encounter other than the continued mention of swords and that Aiglamene’s leg has been replaced by a bone adept, which in context we assume is a specific kind of necromancer.
At the end of this section, we return to the idea that the dead linger on with the mention that if Gideon were to die here, “that would only be the beginning.”
In the final section of the chapter we get more background and a more complete description of the planet—yes, it is called a planet. The Ninth House is inside the planet’s core, and there is a bubble installation prison high above the surface, “where the living conditions were probably a hell of a lot more clement.” Which implies that the technology exists to make the Ninth House more hospitable, and yet it is not, which means it must be kept harsh and cold … on purpose.
Then we get a lot of science fiction words. Gideon’s mother’s “hazard suit” was out of “battery power” and Gideon was held in a “bio-container.” This is made science fantasy awesome when nun-adepts are summoned to try to get an answer out of her ghost. This makes sense, because a theme that has been made very clear throughout this chapter is that death is not the end. Which gives more context to the earlier phrase in the catacomb niche, which mentions “her mother hadn’t been there since Gideon was little and would never go back to it now.” Which gets creepy when we realize that Gideon’s mother has been dead since the day Gideon was born. Spooky.
At the very end of the chapter, we get some delightful hooks that I’ll let you discover on your own, because if you haven’t already read this fantastic book, please do yourself a favor and get your phalanges on a copy.
So, not only does the first chapter of Gideon the Ninth set up a smorgasbord of ideas that will be explored throughout the novel, but also, by alternating between fantasy and science fiction words and tropes and overlaying them with gothic imagery, creates a unique mash-up setting. The line between fantasy and science fiction is blurred, as is the line between the living and the dead. Gideon stands in stark contrast to her surroundings, having been literally dropped in from somewhere else, like a character from a different genre.
Verdict: Gideon the Ninth is totally Science Fantasy Awesome.