🎃 What I Am Reading for Halloween: "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir
This book came with the irresistible description of "lesbian necromancers in space" when I first read about it last year, so I hurried to save it a place on this year's Halloween list. It did indeed have lesbian necromancers, and they did spend some time in space, though "interplanetary lesbian necromancers" would have been a more accurate description.
The book wholly commits to a sort of teen-goth aesthetic, with an unending supply of skeletons and skeleton décor and an irreverent tone from both the characters and the author; with liberal use of modern slang like "resting bitch face" and things like that. This obviously doesn't make for the most immersive horror (though camp of course has a longstanding place in the horror canon), but the book is really more of a fantasy novel anyway, with a fairly standard fantasy plot.
The Emperor, who rules the galaxy, is a necromancer, as are the leadership of each of the nine houses. The Emperor is served by his Lyctors, though their number is running low after ten thousand years; so he summons the heir of each house on a trip to a crumbling cliffside palace. Here, they will study and compete to become new Lyctors, unlocking the secrets of the palace in the process. They are each aided by their sworn cavalier.
The main characters are Gideon Nav and Harrowhark. Harrow is the heir to the ninth house, a severely decayed house of funeral bone-worshippers on the cold, rocky outermost planet, depleted in number and power. After the summons (and after her sad-sack cavalier, expectedly, runs off), Harrow is forced to rely on her old childhood nemesis, Gideon (a woman's name in this case), with whom she has had a rivalry since they were born. They are, in fact, the only two people in their age cohort on the planet. Gideon, a foundling, has dreamed of escape for years, to join the Cohort and fight in space marine-type battles in the Empire's defense. This escape is offered to her if she helps Harrow in the quest; for despite her foul-mouther intransigence, Gideon is an exceptionally-skilled swordswoman. She constantly needles Harrow, and the two hate each other to start.
Together, these two figure out whom among the eight other house delegations they can trust, and which are harboring dangerous secrets. One can probably imagine the plot: people are up to mysterious activities, alliances are formed and broken, tension increases, people start to die. Some characters are important, some superfluous, some expendable. The Gideon-Harrow relationship evolves. New ground isn't really broken; but the book is a lot of fun to read, and one can easily stay and finish it in a few extended sittings. I won't spoil the ending, but it is the first book in a trilogy, and I'm not sure if I'll wait until next Halloween to read the sequel.