Gideon the Ninth

Fantasy

First published: 2019
Print length: 448 pagesDoherty Associates, LLC, Tom, 2019

Locus Award for Best First Novel, 2020

Description

Eighteen-year-old Gideon Nav wants only to escape the Ninth House, a death cult charged with guarding a Locked Tomb. Her rival, the gifted necromancer Harrowhark Nonagesimus, offers her a military commission if Gideon will serve as her cavalier in the Emperor’s trials. At Canaan House, heirs and fighters from the other Houses compete to uncover the secrets of Lyctorhood through elaborate puzzles and necromantic experiments. Harrow’s command of bone magic and Gideon’s skill with a blade make them formidable, but mutual hostility complicates every alliance. When suspicious deaths transform the contest into an investigation, the pair must navigate blackmail, bribery, and rival ambitions. The novel combines science-fantasy, locked-house mystery, combative humor, and an antagonistic partnership forged under lethal pressure.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Dark · Humorous · Irreverent · Tense

Structure

Linear

Focus

Mystery · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

AmbitionFriendshipIdentityKnowledge and truthMortalityPower

About Tamsyn Muir

Tamsyn Muir is a New Zealand writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror whose career is centered on The Locked Tomb, the science-fantasy sequence that began with her first novel, Gideon the Ninth. Her work combines gothic necromancy and large-scale cosmic conflict with intimate mysteries of identity, memory, and allegiance. The books are notably willing to change form and point of view: Gideon the Ninth pairs a death-haunted setting with conversational, dialogue-driven wit, while Harrow the Ninth uses a denser, fragmented structure and an unreliable account of the past. Nona the Ninth shifts again, setting questions of bodily identity and extraordinary power against school life, friendship, and planetary crisis. Across these changes, Muir returns to fraught partnerships and to characters trying to understand themselves inside ancient, coercive systems. What distinguishes the series is the way its blend of fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and dark comedy makes uncertainty part of the reader’s experience.

Series

Locked Tomb series · Book 1

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom
Language: English
ISBN: 9781250313171

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