Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (audiobook narrated by Moira Quirk)
☀️☀️☀️⛅

A wickedly unique and daring novel that pushes boundaries in many ways, but it's hulking page count and strange pacing prevents it from becoming an instant classic.

The phrase 'style over substance' is too harsh a summary for this story but it does go towards explaining my feelings. Firstly, I found the world building lacking in context and struggled significantly for the first half to comprehend the strange combination of space, necromancy, religion and Hunger Games-style challenges all rolled into one; for such a unique concept, I needed to be given more footholds.

The book wasn't too long in theory - not when there's so much to cover - but in execution most of the first half is wasted not adequately explaining the plot or the stakes quite enough to get the pace going. Things picked up in the second half well but by then I wasn't as invested as I wanted to be at the carnage.

The characterisation was genuinely impressive - with far too many characters to keep track of, Muir gives everyone memorable and identifiable traits (and Quirk performs their various accents and deliveries with impeccable style). Gideon's humour was amusing but could at times come off as too juvenile. Her relationship with Harrow was appropriately complicated and I found their arc very well developed.

I think this is a case of a good book that simply missed the mark for me. It's appropriately intriguing and tense and laugh out loud funny at points, but over its length it couldn't maintain the same level of quality it deserved.