Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

 "In the Myriadic Year of Our Lord - the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!- Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth."

Um - WHAT???

Gideon might be the only character who, in some ways, reminds me of El from Novik's A Deadly Education.  She's sarcastic and amazing.  

Muir drops the reader right in the middle of the action.  Gideon is determined to make her escape.  In this escape, you are forced to understand the dynamics and terms of Gideon's world.  It involves space, necromancy, politics, lies, plots, and lots and lots of glorious sarcasm. 

Confession: I generally avoid reading sci-fi.  Not a fan.  I can watch sci-fi - Firefly, Doctor Who, Warehouse 13, I can't recommend them all highly enough.  But I struggle with reading it.  It's not you, sci-fi, it's me.  This book proves that there are exceptions to this rule.

Apparently reading sci-fi is totally okay when there's enough humor (maybe that's why I adored Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and brilliant, refreshingly sarcastic characters.

Also, something about the strange mix of EVERYTHING in this book is appealing.  Sarcasm.  Space.  Necromancy.  Humor.  Necromancy.  Sarcasm.  Death.  Sarcasm.  Murder mystery.  Sarcasm.  Sarcasm.  Skeletons.  Sarcasm. Sarcasm.

About halfway through, this book starts to feel a bit like the movie, Clue.  And it's great.


While my go-to read is typically something fantastic and beautifully written, this book is such a refreshing read.

And look at the cover!!!