On paper[1], Gideon the Ninth seems tailor-made for me to love it. It’s like someone took Rendezvous with Rama, decades of D&D necromancer jokes, and a modern snarky television teenager, and threw them all in a blender, then poured the puree into a puzzle box that is, if probably not solvable for any given reader, at least has a satisfying solution.

And I want to be clear that even though the first few chapters were a slow, uphill start, it turns out I really did enjoy every single one of those elements, disparately and in conjunction. Nevertheless, I have big, complicated feelings about this book, which are impossible to get into without massive story-destroying spoilers. And so, a cut!

But seriously, last chance to not read this if you haven’t read the subject matter already.

So, it’s like this. If this were a standalone book, I would take the suckerpunch at the end in stride. It’s not the same thing except in the “subversion of expectations” sense, but I’ve always wanted to write a book where the bad guy wins. So I can respect a good, hard twist.

But it’s the first book in a trilogy series, and the entire[2] book is not only told from a single viewpoint, but the voice behind that viewpoint is basically the selling point of the book. So to get to the end of it only to discover that, haha, nope, character dead and gone and even spiritually gone, right down to the “I’m getting farther away away and soon I’ll be gone forever” fadeout… it’s hard to be excited about the second volume under those circumstances, even if the book talked me into liking the apparent viewpoint character of said second volume.

…or especially because, considering the circumstances?

In conclusion: ugh. The ugh is because I am going to read the next book anyway, and just leave myself open to being kicked when I’m down. But not for a few weeks, I expect.

[1] heh
[2] well, close enough