Gideon the Ninth was an absolutely wonderful book, a new favorite of mine. Which makes Harrow the Ninth all the harder to read–and especially review. This is going to be one of the most spoilery reviews I’ve ever written, but I think it’s necessary. If you don’t do spoilers: read the book. It’s worth it. But it’s going to be weird and confusing.

Don’t get me wrong. There is an absolute boatload to love about this book. The worldbuilding is still a fascinating combination of sci-fi and gothic (literally necromancers in space). The wording is still wonderful and weird and funny.

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One day eighteen years ago, Gideon’s mother had tumbled down the middle of the shaft in a dragchute and a battered hazard suite, like some moth drifting slowly down into the dark. The suit had been out of power for a couple of minutes. The woman landed brain-dead. All the battery power had been sucked away by a bio-container plugged into the suit, the kind you’d care a transplant limb in, and inside that container was Gideon, only a day old.

This was obviously mysterious as hell.

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