Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Like a lot of other folks, when I started this book I kind of struggled with it. The formal setup, combined with over-the-top frenemy rhetoric (which never lets up but makes more sense later) and some unfortunate teen-speak made me sad. But it takes a lot to make me DNF once I start, so I persisted. And for me, I think it picked up before the 300 page mark. The author is very good at action scenes, and leads up to them in promising ways, so I began to get motivated. By the end I had trouble breaking off to go to bed, so all that is good. We get a great development of the relationship between Gideon and Harrow, and the ending is an excellent twist. You sort of see it coming, but *how* it's done is great.

There is some button pushing that is probably more natural than it sounded to me. Gideon presents as female, and describes both viewing hotness and being hot, so there is a lesbian element. But she has bulging muscles and a masculine approach to fighting, so sort of gender dysphoric too.  There is a brief mention that she is a person of color (a "ginger").

It pretty much reads as a YA novel--most of the characters are teens, and the action centers on them. It is highly structured (9 houses, the naming conventions) in the way YA fiction often is. I ran from that stuff as an actual teen, but am able to see the value in the plot more now. I am definitely glad I persisted and read the whole thing. Came away very entertained. Three stars is because I am a hard grader.



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The City In the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm going along with many others here saying that this is in many respects a well-written book, but not a great one. Might be a dearth of candidates for the Hugo, or maybe they need to continue to look farther afield. People trying to survive on an alien, tidally locked planet are not a new thing, but there's a lot of room for experimenting there and Anders does some things really well.

There are some things about it I liked that other reviewers may have missed. The Gelet (natives) are a decently strong presence in the book, and toward the end of the book are revealed to have a lot more going on than meets the eye. They are performing great feats of semi-natural geoengineering to keep the planet habitable. And they have incredible communication talents. These speculations should be enough to keep most of us SF fans happy.

The central characters, Sophie and Bianca, are there to demonstrate the complex pitfalls of blind, stupid love. Interestingly, not really romantic love, something more of a Platonic crush. Sophie makes bad choice after bad choice to keep her hope of a relationship with Bianca alive, and Bianca uses her mercilessly. These kinds of relationships are frustrating to read, and can color one's whole opinion of the book even when they are successfully depicted.

The surrounding plot, though, just kind of bumps along, and while there are some exciting moments it's not enough to forgive the frustrating, one-sided relationship. I am glad I made it through, and overall I would say I enjoyed it, but it's not great.



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