Help me make a case for GtN [discussion]
TL,DR: What are some things that you loved about GtN (or the series overall, without spoilers for HtN or NtN)
I finally convinced a friend to read GtN, and I’m slightly disappointed in his response. His main takeaway was “They have FTL space travel, but fight with swords? Lame.”
Our book group will get together soon to discuss the book in-depth, and I was hoping to get some help. What are some things you loved about Gideon the Ninth, and what are some things you loved about the series overall? It’s not a *perfect* book, I’m sure, but it managed to reignite my love for reading after a few stagnant years, and I want to present the best possible case for it being truly great.
My thoughts so far are these:
The PR tagline is that the series is about necromancers in space, but for me, the more intimate character work is what made me enjoy it so much. GtN was a story about two traumatized young girls who found a way to care about each other even though they were awful to each other. The way Muir realized this paradigm was beautiful and deeply entertaining. I also loved Cam and Palamedes from the very beginning. She really managed to make each character bloom in their own way (even Octachizaron, though I wasn’t able to gain an appreciation of him until my second reading)
The prose, and the way Muir described the settings and people enthralled me, though sometimes it bordered on being purple.
I loved the way she used the 3rd person POV. She would start a sentence/phase as an omniscient narrator and then turn the phrase by spinning it with Gideon’s childish perspective. Here are some examples:
*It was as though the second girl were the starved shadow of the first, or the first, an illuminated reflection. The boy just looked a bit of a dick*
*The Lord and lady should have taken charge of the sacred ritual, but they couldn’t, because they were mega dead*
There are probably other, better examples, these are just the ones I made note of
- Muir revealed very little of the plot throughout the book, and also did very little world-building. The story’s focus was microscopically centered on Gideon and her perspective, sometimes maybe to a fault. This was one thing my friend had a lot of trouble with.
Muir seems to have done this with two goals in mind: to keep the mystery alive and to force the reader to focus on the story she wanted to tell as it unfolded. She committed to withholding plot/world-building to such an extent that it almost felt oppositional, obstinate. It’s like she was saying to the reader, “I can feel your compulsive need to have your questions about this world answered, and I reject it. I will reveal what’s necessary as it becomes necessary, but for now focus on what willing to give you.”
I’ll admit, at first it was hard to trust her, but once I let go and just focused on the story, the experience became something incredible.
I’m looking forward to hearing everyone else’s thoughts. Thanks in advance.