More readable on the blog (and has a picture of my cat/son): https://cannedbreadblog.wordpress.com...

Note: Unlike my previous reviews, I’m trying something a little different. If you can give constructive feedback, that’d be great!
The Dissection is bite-size this time around. You can skip to the end to get to it.
Take my Character and Terms with a grain of salt, I know it’s not accurate, Matthew.

Blurb: An indentured servant becomes a swordswoman for a necromancer. The necromancer is in an exploration tournament game where the winner gets to become immortal. There are 9 houses, which one succeeds, and which one jacks off to horny magazines?


Characters and Terms:

Gideon’s Mom as You:
Just go with it.
Gideon:
Indentured Servant to the Ninth House. Has 2 brain cells and snarky morbid humor at times. And possibly lesbian (doubtful being bi since none of the dudes were ever described to seem hot and honestly…they all sound like pricks).
Harrow aka “The Tsundere of the Ninth”: Leader of the Ninth House and childhood enemy of Gideon. Pretty much tortured her all of her life. Her parents are dead and is a tsundere whether she agrees or not. She won’t. Also has the “hots for a dead chick.” –“Anonymous Source”
Cavaliers:
Think Swordsmen for Necromancers.
Adepts:
“Not like other boys/girls” aka another word for necromancers in this book.
Lyctor:
Immortal necromancers that currently serve the First House.
Canaan House:
The spooky manor everyone is stuck in.
Houses:
Clans to the Emperor of the galaxy the book takes place in.
Second House:
A police-like House…I think?
Third House:
2 hot blonde twins and one Chad cavalier
Fourth House:
Teen necromancer and teen adept, possibly related to Fifth House.
Fifth House:
Makes puns a lot and are a couple?
Sixth House:
Likes medicine and shit.
Seventh House:
Has a mortally ill girl and an adept that smells like dead cheese.
Eighth House:
Idfk, just grump as shit.
Ninth House:
A hunk of black rock that houses the tomb of a dead girl that the Emperor shrieks at. Cavalier: Gideon. Necromancer: Harrow, “Tsundere of the Ninth”
Teacher:
Part of the 1st house under the Emperor, organizer of the tournament, and caretaker of Canaan House.




You’re dead.
Solid start to your new life, eh? You get to haunt your daughter for the rest of her life so take it as you will. For some reason, you scream your child’s name, Gideon, when you’re dying, and you were in a hazmat suit and also a ghost. That explains so much, and yet so little…

You see your daughter raised as a slave to a House that gives literal two shits about her. To help her along, you allow her to survive various deus ex machina bullshit like survive a genocide. How? You channel your luck to her. Probably. Gideon also uses her luck to get an escape route off this deadbeat planet. Aside from that, you can’t help but feel a strange mix of feelings of pride and disappointment.
On one hand, your daughter probably has more emotion than anyone on this black rock. On the other hand, she literally has 2 brain cells. If your daughter sees someone, she’ll go “Oonga boonga, you bleed. I hit. Hm, good.”

Hold on, Gideon’s childhood bully, Harrow, wants to indenture Gideon further claiming she’ll get her real freedom if she does what Harrow says. Which makes not even two bits of sense to you, but your brain-celled daughter agrees to it anyway. Definitely got that from her father…
You see Gideon and the tsundere love interest go on board a ship that takes them to another rock that holds 7 other Houses and 1 chaperone house. You barely remember any of their names except you remember you loved the 5th and 4th House dynamics of being embarrassed teens to their relatives’ puns. It reminded you of when you were young making puns that would make your father bow in shame.

For some reason, the Ninth House demands their cavaliers to be silent, and necromancers to be moody edge lords, so Gideon is just a walking Persona 5 protagonist. You find yourself almost falling asleep at these interactions, but you understand why Gideon is silent. She learns information but holy fuck, it was hell for you to listen to, day in and day out.

At one point, you witness Gideon having an emotional argument with Harrow in a lab. Harrow asks why Gideon wants to fight a monster…. When all your daughter thinks to herself…she just wants to throw punches at something that tries to harm her. Those 2 brain cells at least have survival instincts…

You start to drift a little in your conscience until your favorite house gets murdered and you feel yourself playing a dirge in your head for the puns that will never be sung again in those halls. At this point, you start to remember other houses exist and start to realize that the 6th house is sorta of medical-y. Ah, 69. Heh.

You wish the teens and Gideon can hear your lame-ass jokes. But they’re busy trying to find a missing dude from the 7th House. Apparently, he’s in the dangerous part of this spooky manor. Then the male teen gets Swiss Cheese’d and you know that mofo is dead. At least the girl is al-oh. Kid, you had one job.

But you feel bad because Gideon realized she fucked up and now is living with depression and a tsundere love interest that may or may not have decapitated the person Gideon was looking for, to begin with.

You drift off again, almost lulling yourself to eternal sleep… until you wake up, everything is on fire, Teacher is dead, the 2nd house is dead, the 3rd House figured out how to turn into Lyctor and you and 69 (and 8 to ruin the joke) are the only houses left alive. (7th meanwhile is waiting for death (just like me)). You’re kinda reminded of that one scene in “Community” where everything is on fire, though that’s from a previous life and we don’t have time to contemplate your drowsiness and visions.

The 3 remaining Houses do battle with the 3rd House which turns out to be one of the pretty blondes (not the hot one your daughter lusts over) who figured out how to become a Lyctor but…. something is off. Her eyes keep rolling to the back of her head and she keeps fighting with herself constantly. Kind of like you when you wonder why you became pregnant with a 2-brain cell child. The secret is to eat someone else to take all of their death energy that sustains you. Oh, and you can go through the floors. Yeah, maybe you aren’t drowsy, but just on acid.

Out of the corner of your eye, the 6th Dr. House™ necromancer realizes who the real murderer is which turns out to be the girl of the 7th House, who isn’t actually mortally ill (kinda), and you roll your eyes because you saw that coming from a mile away. Who is the least likely killer? There’s your answer.

And also turns out the 7th necromancer is actually a Lyctor inside of a person who has leukemia. Why this is, you have fucking no idea. The real necromancer is dead and that’s who’s been roasting away in the hibachi grill. 6th blows himself up to hopefully do some damage. It didn’t, it was negligible at best, and you applaud him for trying as he joins you to watch this shit fest go down.

He walks and sulks in an imaginary corner, shouting at himself that it was a stupid way to go, and you let him be, listening to his iPod that has Eminem only on it (we’re dead, the iPod’s dead, just go with it, Matthew) as you watch what your daughter does next. Good on her, she wobbles off with the remaining half-alive teammates who are now just the 6th House cavalier, Harrow, and Gideon. You cheer her on although you realize that it’s starting to be a hopeless battle.

Harrow barely puts up a barrier and you witness a touching heart-to-heart between the two. You’re not exactly sure what Gideon is trying to lead up to and then she immediately stabs herself in the heart. Harrow realizes she has to eat Gideon and slay this Lyctor once and for all.

You suddenly had the realization. Why was a Lyctor inside of a mortally ill girl anyway?

Harrow slays the Lyctor and then the Emperor and Harrow talk about the doom of the galaxy and now Harrow wants to see if she can help.

Then Gideon joins you up in this hyperspace of death. You don’t know what to say but rush her over into your arms and you meld together to be one with her and whisper, Until death do us part.



My Real Thoughts:
This was like…an odd fever dream in a book.
The book is simultaneously really good, but sloppy with prose and execution. Understandable, given this was Muir’s debut. It wasn’t bad.
I understand what Muir was trying to do, create a dark fantasy with humor and it sorta worked. The problem lies in the prose where she tries to make it fancy, which doesn’t work when you’re trying to tie this with humor and simultaneously, make it accessible to new readers.
I did love the humor and when we did get Worldbuilding, it was good. However, it wasn’t at the forefront. Exploration was and it sometimes killed the pacing we had in the beginning and once the Teacher said, “Have fun.” We were following the trail like snails.
I would want to pick up the 2nd book but unfortunately, I have no desire after Gideon was killed off. I feel like Gideon was the vehicle Muir needed, not Harrow.
Though I was happy to witness Gideon’s life go out with a girl she cared for. And got eaten out by one that she cared about! Not a bad way to go but maybe the dead girl in a coffin might give Gideon a run for her money.

So, a fast dissection:


Cover Art:



Tommy Arnold did an all-right job. It’s a beautiful piece, of course, but I can’t say it reflected what went on in the book. The book was more exploration mystery than action packed heroine beating up skeletons which is what this cover says to me.
Props either way for making a gorgeous piece with good contrast and showing a little bit of Muir’s humor and darkness in between.


Worldbuilding:
It exists. Orderly Method at best, minor Weaving.

Prose:
Sloppy in execution. It’s fine but not for the type of book Muir is going for. But holy shit, she uses so many adverbs and adjectives that it hurt my head being able to detect so many one after the other. I would rather read Muir’s over William’s “Ninth Rain” any day if that gives you any idea what you’re in for.

Pace:
Slow as molasses in the first 50% of the book. Picks up afterward… as fast as the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. (Yes, that’s real, look it up)

Characters:
Gideon is a walking trope of 2 brain cells, but Muir at least is courageous enough to give an MC personality rather than make her too plain. Harrow is an MC in her own right and has a conscious that you love to see. The rest of the characters are surface-level at best sadly.

Vibe:
You’re in a dark spooky house most of the time with skeletons being servants and gloomy people helping along the way sometimes. Mostly the first half of the book is exploring said spooky house. It has thoughtful exploration, but it can drone on.

Plot:
The plot is basically about an indentured servant who has to serve a necromancer in a spooky house. Said Necromancer wants to become immortal, and you have to deal with 8 other houses to become said immortal being.


Fix it AU:
Fix the prose for the type of book you’re trying to go for, make better characters outside of the MCs to make them feel more real and not cardboard stands, and have the Houses be a little more specialized than their appearances. At the end of the day, they were based on physical appearance and personality, not exactly what their houses are known for, which is fine, but I wanted more of their house’s background just to make this world feel bigger.

Tags:
Skeletons. Darkish Fantasy, Sorta Souls-like, Humor, LGBT, Necromancers, Sci-fi Fantasy Mashup.

So, who should read this?
Read if you want an LGBT darkish Sci-fi Fantasy mashup, about a swordswoman beating up skeletons and shit. If you liked my dumbass humor, you’ll love Muir’s humor. You’ll have to be okay with a painstakingly slow start and then picks up like we’re in that weird Nissan movie.

3.5/5