I recently texted a friend who played D&D with me, describing this book as "Space Necromancers and wise-cracking rogue go to Space Castelevania." I also linked to a glowing NPR review in case my 8-bit synopsis gave the wrong impression that this book was ONLY a clever synopsis. Sometimes a book can be pulpy sci-fantasy horror/action/comedy AND ALSO land many of the things that would have hooked me were this simply an ordinary tale of a squabbling couple on a very bad vacation (it sort of is). But the pulp, and the counter-intuitive plays on pulp, is also essential to its heart. I'm kind of sick of overly cynical stories so I was pleased to quickly learn that this is a world where #notallnecromancers are Evil (maybe some are). Some even care quite deeply about the living.

Muir finds punchy and playful ways to describe 10,000 year mythos or a stab of a rapier. While the world building is often maximalist, the story is carefully contained and the emotional pay offs are effectively restrained. Gideon the Ninth starts out as a goth space opera blend of Army of Darkness/Dune/Beetlejuice (which I expected from the description) and then quickly morphs into something more like space goth Knives Out/Veep/Luigi's Mansion (a surprising delight).

Since I think the second mash up is owed a bit more explanation: The second act of this book (i.e. most of it) is a murder mystery / haunted house / political intrigue story peppered with very bawdy insults (a la Veep). Look, no shade to Conversations with Friends (another reading from this year) but I'm unlikely to remember any particular lines those characters said to each other nearly as much as I'll remember, "if my heart had a dick you would kick it," and no shade to Veep, but unlike that particular world, some of these insults are grounded in some real feelings and pathos. Get Muir to punch up House of the Dragon or Succession and HBO's got my attention for another year. In the meantime, I'm reading The Locked Tomb Book 2.