Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

"One flesh, one end." Today on the Brodacious Book Club, we look at Tamsyn Muir's debut novel Gideon the Ninth, which took the speculative fiction world by storm last year with its unique blend of science fiction, horror, and magic. Join us for a rousing discussion about necromancy and lesbians, and, frankly, far too many Star Wars references.

CW for mention of suicide, cancer, horror elements, swearing

Intro:
Pump Sting by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4251-pump-sting
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro:
Iron Bacon by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3925-iron-bacon
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

Erin:   0:05
Hello and welcome back to the Brodacious Book Club, the podcast where we host a book club -

Matt:   0:10
- and I haven't read the book.

Erin:   0:12
I'm your host, Erin Rockfort, and with me is my good good bro, the conqueror of Brodania, Matt Thomas. Every episode we review a new book, read by me, and discussed with Matt. 

Matt:   0:24
I often know nothing or very little about the books discussed, providing a sort of sounding board, or peanut gallery, with occasional humorous bent. Basically, if I understand the book by the end of the podcast, so will you. And that means we've done our job.

Erin:   0:38
We want to help you, the listener, understand the nuances of books and stories, without having to read them.

Matt:   0:43
Because you're busy and we get that. 

Erin:   0:45
Of course, because we'll be diving right into these, we want to give a spoiler alert. We'll be discussing major plot points, and, of course, that will involve spoilers. If you don't want spoilers, we absolutely encourage you to read the book beforehand. Then you can listen to the summary and hear our thoughts.

Matt:   0:59
That's right. And with that, this is a podcast meant for entertainment, as well. Got a little thing here in our notes, saying, "This is a comedy podcast" with a question mark beside it. But I think it's an accurate way of describing what we do here.

Erin:   1:11
We obviously mean no disrespect to the books or the authors discussed, we're just trying to be funny. 

Matt:   1:17
So, Erin, what are we reading today? 

Erin:   1:20
So today we're reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. I originally scheduled this for this episode because the sequel was originally supposed to come out next month. But due to certain current world events, the book launch has been delayed. But that's fine. We can still talk about this and then you'll be prepared for when it comes out later this year, maybe.

Matt:   1:41
Maybe.

Erin:   1:41
Hopefully.

Matt:   1:43
Hopefully. Well paint us a word picture, Erin, and take it away. What's the setting? What're we dealing with?

Erin:   1:46
So technically, this is a science fiction book, though as we're talking about it, you would be forgiven for thinking that it's a fantasy novel. The tagline that I used to entice people into reading this book is that it's about lesbian necromancers in space.

Matt:   2:02
All right, I wasn't prepared to write that down. I had the pen at the ready, but all right, you got me interested, at the very least. Please go on.

Erin:   2:11
I believe it takes place, sort of in the future, where there is necromancy, obviously, and there is some sort of space war that's been going on for thousands of years. We don't get a lot of information about this, but this is important background context.

Matt:   2:26
A - a space war happening during a -

Erin:   2:30
A Star War, if you will. 

Matt:   2:31
One could say, one could say.

Erin:   2:36
And in this - future, question mark? The story takes place within this conglomeration of - there's nine houses, and they all specialize in different kinds of necromancy. And they're all ruled over by the Emperor, who is also known as the Lord Undying or the King Undying. And he's been alive for the entirety of this war that has spanned thousands of years, as have his closest advisers, who are called the Lie-ctors, or the Lictors.

Pronunciation Guide:   0:00
Lictor.

Matt:   3:07
OK, so it is Lictor. Mystery solved! Another case closed, you're welcome listeners.

Erin:   3:13
The first house of these is comprised of just the Emperor and his Lictors, and then the rest of them are populated by general -

Matt:   3:21
[laughing] No, stop. Hmm, serious, we're very serious,

Erin:   3:27
A very serious podcast. 

Matt:   3:28
That's what I'm saying.,

Erin:   3:29
I know that goes against everything we said earlier. 

Matt:   3:31
Right.

Erin:   3:32
People within this universe, the ones who can use necromancy, at least, use something called "thanergy," which is death energy, basically, and it's generated by, like, death and decay and dying. So any time they're on a planet that has any kind of life on it, they have access to this power. But in space, they don't.

Matt:   3:49
Loving it so far, super interesting. And vaguely familiar, actually, I don't know why or where, but the idea of a new immortal space emperor I feel like I've seen, I feel like I've been there.

Erin:   4:04
I feel like "immortal space emperor" could probably be like a character archetype in itself.

Matt:   4:09
That's a fair, good point. Very good point. But, setting aside, who's our hero?

Erin:   4:14
As is maybe implied by the title, the book centres around a character named Gideon Nav. She is an indentured servant to the House of the Ninth. She's 18 at the beginning of the story, and she's pretty cool. We get information very early on that, like her favourite things are swords and pin-up girls.

Matt:   4:38
Wow. Same.

Erin:   4:38
Yep. And the Ninth House within this universe wasn't supposed to exist, there were only supposed to be eight houses. The Ninth House is the place where the Locked Tomb is, and the Locked Tomb supposedly holds the emperor's greatest enemy. So the people there were pilgrims who were sent to lock the tomb up with the enemy inside and then die with it. But those initial people didn't die with it. They decided to keep going. So that was the beginning of the Ninth House, but it wasn't meant to exist. So they're not looked upon super well by the rest of the houses.

Matt:   5:13
And they control access to the tomb?

Erin:   5:13
They do, though you can't just open it willy nilly, and obviously, huge taboo against opening it. And the Ninth House is also, like, very poor, they don't have a lot of resources. Everyone's just kind of sad and obsessed with death. It also doesn't help that Gideon, our main character, was one of only two children growing up in the House of the Ninth. Because when she was like a baby, there were like, you know, a lot of kids and they were all wiped out by a plague. 

Matt:   5:41
Topical, topical.

Erin:   5:41
Yeah, unintentionally topical. She also wasn't born on the Ninth - well, she was, but her mother, like crash-landed there while pregnant, I believe, so she came from somewhere else. She has been raised essentially as an orphan to do the bidding of the people in the Ninth House

Matt:   5:59
Curious, curious. All right, well, now we've got setting. We've got the characters. The only thing left is the arc, take it away.

Erin:   6:06
Okay, I will do so. As the story begins, we meet Gideon. She's trying to leave the Ninth House. She wants to enlist in the army, which is called the Cohort. She's tried to escape 86 times since she was born, and she is stopped by the heir of the Ninth House, who was the only other child growing up at the same time. Her name is Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

Matt:   6:30
Does she have a nickname?

Erin:   6:30
She is called Harrow most of the time. She is the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. They have a very antagonistic relationship. Gideon threatens to reveal what she knows about the Ninth House if Harrow won't let her leave. And Harrow says she wishes Gideon had been smothered as a child. Harrow challenges Gideon to a fight to try and get her to come to this big Ninth House meeting. Harrow wins the fight by summoning a bunch of skeletons to drag Gideon down and hold her, and it's revealed that Harrow buried the skeletons around this area the night before, in preparation for this fight. 

Matt:   7:10
Crafty necromancer.

Erin:   7:11
So Gideon goes to this meeting. Harrow has promised that she will let Gideon go after the meeting. And at the meeting, we learned that Harrow's parents have been dead for seven years, she has been basically puppet-ing them ever since. 

Matt:   7:24
Wow. 

Erin:   7:24
And nobody has noticed.

Matt:   7:26
Again, I say, crafty necromancers.

Erin:   7:28
Yeah, and I believe this is the secret that Gideon refers to earlier. And Harrow reveals that the emperor has summoned the first child of each house to have the chance to become Lictors themselves, which grants a lot of power and money and influence and immortality, also, because all of the Lictors are also immortal. So the heir of the house - and each house, the heir is always a necromancer, at least they're supposed to be -they each have a cavalier who is their sworn bodyguard. So the heir and the cavalier are supposed to come to this event.

Matt:   8:01
I see where this is going. Okay.

Erin:   8:03
You see where this is going. And there is a designated cavalier because it's a position that you inherit, but the Ninth Cavalier is cowardly and escapes on the shuttle that Gideon had been planning on taking. And it's implied that this was all sort of a manipulation by Harrow, and she gets Gideon to agree to be her cavalier instead. Basically, her goal is to gain power and influence for the Ninth House because it's broke and dying, promises to also release Gideon and let her do whatever she wants if they succeed in this. So they leave the Ninth together, towards the First House, which is on a different planet, obviously. The First House has this palace, it's called Canaan house, and it's kind of broken down, like the Emperor has clearly not lived there in a long time, but they're greeted by some priests who are living there. One of them is called Teacher, he's sort of the main point of contact. There's also some skeleton servants.

Matt:   8:55
As you do.

Erin:   8:55
'Cause necromancers. And all of the houses arrive, so there's eight of them, technically, in total. I'm going to sort of introduce them as they become important, because I think throwing a bunch of names at you right now will just be a lot.

Matt:   9:06
Agreed, yeah.

Erin:   9:06
As all the houses are arriving, there's a bit of a snafu where some of them have some difficulty, and the heir of the Seventh collapses on her way out of her ship. She's this waif-ish woman, she starts coughing up blood, and it's a whole thing. And Gideon rushes over to help her and learns that her name is Dulcinea Septimus and Dulcinea's this sort of over the top - she's like, "oh, isn't it beautiful, how sick I am?" kind of heir to her. Like, I imagine her is the sort of 1920s movie star?

Matt:   9:35
That's funny, because that's exactly what I was picturing!

Erin:   9:39
I'm glad!

Matt:   9:39
Okay, so, glad we're on the same page.

Erin:   9:42
And they get the explanation that the emperor needs new Lictors, 'cause some of them, I guess, have fallen in battle over the thousands of years that this war has been raging. But first they have to pass a trial, and they don't get really any information about this trial. The only instruction that they're given is that they cannot open a locked door without asking. So Harrow goes exploring, tells Gideon to not cause any trouble, and not to speak to anyone. So she spends her day picking around the house and kind of interacting with others, but without actually saying anything to them. She meets Magnus the Fifth, who's really kind to her, he's like, friendly and jovial. There's also the Fourth House, who look up to him, they're both teenagers. And she's gets to know a little bit of the others. The Third House brought twins, both as necromancers, which is highly unusual, and then the Eighth are a creepy uncle-nephew duo.

Matt:   10:32
I see, very good, very good. 

Erin:   10:35
There's all sorts.

Matt:   10:36
You know it's funny cause some of these character relationships, like, I would dig into more, to try to get more of a feel, but that's the perfect way to describe them.

Erin:   10:43
And we get more, like - I'm trying not to overload at the beginning because even as I was reading it for the first time, I was a little bit overwhelmed by the characters when I first met them all, because there's just a lot of them.

Matt:   10:54
It's that kind of book.

Erin:   10:54
Exactly, and it's it's the kind of book too where you like you open it and there's an index of each house, which is my favourite.

Matt:   11:01
Yeah, I love it. 

Erin:   11:02
I also love it.

Matt:   11:02
We all love it.

Erin:   11:02
It's great. And she - I was gonna say, she and Dulcinea a bond a little bit, mostly Dulcinea just talks at her and gets her to do some sword technique. And they have a fun sparring match, some of the different houses, and Gideon really easily beats Magnus because she's actually a pretty good swordswoman. There's a very specific way that cavaliers are meant to duel, and she's not actually trained as a cavalier, and Dulcinea actually picks up on that. She's like, "You seem like you're used to a much heavier sword," because the Cavaliers just used the little...

Matt:   11:32
Rapiers?

Erin:   11:32
Yeah, it's all very civilized. I really like this book partially because there's just a lot of good character moments, like Gideon comes back to the room that she and Harrow are sharing and finds that Harrow has decorated their quarters in bones and, like the hallway outside.

Erin:   11:48
Outstanding.

Erin:   11:48
And claims it's for ambiance, which is great.

Matt:   11:50
Necromancers.

Erin:   11:54
For a couple days, Gideon's just kind of walking around, not talking to anyone, and Harrow is off searching. But one day she realizes that Harrow hasn't come back to the room in a while, so she goes searching for her. She runs into the Sixth House, the necromancer is Palamedes and the cavalier is Camilla. It's helpful that she runs into them because they have a key into the basement, which is - the locked doors all lead into the basement of this Canaan House. And Palamedes is particularly, is really good medicine, so they're kind of the ideal people to run into. So they go into the basements and find Harrow passed out, and it's all creepy and dark down there.

Matt:   12:29
How did Harrow get into the basement?

Erin:   12:29
She had a key! And when she wakes up, she reveals that she figured that because they were only told not to enter a locked door without asking, she went to teacher and asked for a key, and he gave her one. 

Matt:   12:42
Clever! Clever.

Erin:   12:42
She also reveals that the basement is older than the rest of the palace and that it's filled with these challenges. So, like monsters to beat, tasks to complete. So it's clear that, like they have to go down into this basin to complete whatever this test is that will make them into Lictors. Gideon's like, "Okay, you need to stop leaving me behind. I want to come with you on this. I want to actually help you out. You did bring me for a reason," and Harrow's like, "okay, but it is super haunted." So they go up against one of the trials, which is this big bone monster, and they figure that they have to work together to beat it. Because what Harrow has been doing has been manifesting skeletons and sending them to try and fight this monster, and it's not working. So they don't manage to beat it. But they do figure out that Harrow can kind of see through Gideon's eyes and then tell her where to swing, which is a little bit weird for both of them.

Matt:   13:31
I was gonna say, is that a necromancer power, or?

Erin:   13:33
It kind of is, but it's something that they've never used before. It's not really in the normal necromancer playbook. So they don't get it the first time. But they go back down on a later night, after attending - Magnus and Abigail, the Fifth House, are married, and they have, like a wedding anniversary celebration in the middle of this very creepy house.

Matt:   13:51
That's weird. But sure, why not. But again, I mean, necromancers.

Erin:   13:56
Necromancers.

Matt:   13:56
Right? I know I keep coming back to this, but...

Erin:   13:58
While everyone's sort of distracted with this big wedding anniversary, they sneak back down to the basement and they go up against this monster again and work together, using this "Harrow seeing through Gideon's eyes" thing. And they manage to defeat the monster, and they get a new key, which is exciting. And then on the way back from that, they come across the mangled bodies of Magnus and Abigail the Fifth.

Matt:   14:20
Oh, no, 

Erin:   14:21
There's a scene that - I don't know that it's meant to be humorous, but where - they obviously sound the alarm that like, oh, god, these people are dead. And several of them try to like raise the bodies, because they're all necromancers.

Matt:   14:36
I mean the thought occurred to me.

Erin:   14:36
But it's made clear that, like they're too far gone, because some of them do - like Harrow does bones, that's her thing, where some of them do more spirit-based magic. I don't know that we're ever given, like, a breakdown of who does what, but they all have different skills, let's say.

Matt:   14:52
So just a couple of questions about the actual magic itself. The way that I, a layman, understand necromancy in most cases, is that sure, you can raise the dead, but they will be husks of their former selves. And perhaps you can prolong the death, maybe even indefinitely,, of someone who is currently living. I'm assuming that the Emperor and all of the - Lycans? No, that's not it, that's not it at all.

Erin:   15:16
The Emperor and his werewolves. Lictors.

Matt:   15:22
Lictors!

Erin:   15:22
Yeah, it's depending, I think, on the type of magic. So, like Harrow - raising the bones doesn't really have anything to do with, like, the soul. But I think some of the other houses specialize in magic that can reanimate a person and, like they keep some of their personality still.

Matt:   15:39
Yeah, okay.

Erin:   15:39
So everyone does try their necromancy on Magnus and Abigail the Fifth. But they're unsuccessful, and we get a viewpoint into Gideon's mind, where she points out that, the Third twins, one of them is very beautiful. And she is apparently wearing an "astonishingly flimsy nightgown." And it's "the only solace of the night."

Matt:   15:59
I see. Go on.

Erin:   15:59
There's also lots of scenes where like other characters are fawning over Gideon's biceps, which is great.

Matt:   16:04
I love it, I love it. 

Erin:   16:07
I know, she's great. But they're going like, wait, like, what happened to them? They're serving the bottom of like a ladder, and so they're like, did they fall? We don't get like a detailed description of the corpses, but they're pretty...

Matt:   16:18
Mangled?

Erin:   16:18
Smashed. 

Matt:   16:19
Sure, yeah, oooh.

Erin:   16:20
And teacher shows up, and he's like, "you all need to get up here right now, it's very dangerous down there," but they bring the bodies up. There's a morgue in the palace because of course there is. Necromancers. Some of them want to call for outside help. They think they need to let the Fifth House know that they're adept and their cavalier are dead. 

Matt:   16:38
Indeed.

Erin:   16:38
Or they need to call for help because clearly something has killed these people, but teacher won't allow them to do that, he says there's no line. He also tells them that it's very dangerous down there cause there's monsters in the basement. There's a lot of uproar, but eventually they do agree to chill out and actually do an investigation. Harrow and Gideon go and they use their new key. They use it to get into these quarters that obviously a necromancer and a cavalier used to live in, and it has a bunch of papers with theorem and stuff on them, and most of it doesn't really mean anything to Gideon, but she finds very prominently written the phrase, "one flesh, one end."

Matt:   17:15
Hmm. Interesting. Cryptic and dark. A little graphic. Go on.

Erin:   17:15
Yeah, yes. And then the next day they're in the basement, still sort of poking around, trying to find more trials and also trying to find out what happened to Magnus and Abigail. And they run into Dulcinea, and Dulcinea a proposes an alliance, which Harrow reluctantly agrees to. It's because Dulcinea has found a trial that she doesn't think she can complete. It basically involves a necromancer having to walk across this field that's gonna suck energy from you. The necromancer, in order to get across, has to siphon life from their cavalier, and Dulcinea is very sickly and very weak, so she can't do it. But she lets Harrow know she figured this out. Gideon agrees to do it, and Harrow's like, "Why? Why would you do this? It's gonna hurt a whole bunch" and Gideon's like, "Well, cause you asked, I guess." And Dulcinea holds her and comforts her, because she's sort of writhing in pain, while Harrow crosses. But she does get the key on the other end of this trial, and, I think, gives it to Dulcinea. 

Matt:   18:11
Gives it to Dulcinea?

Erin:   18:12
Yeah, because they agree to split the use of the key.

Matt:   18:15
Ahh, I see.

Erin:   18:15
Because they worked together, technically.

Erin:   18:17
Kind of. They also have realized at some point in this that in order to get into the basement, Magnus and Abigail must have had a key and that key is no longer with them, it's not on their bodies. So something took the key - or someone.

Matt:   18:32
Indeed. Now, question, are Harrow and Gideon still...enemies? Is there still a conflict there?

Erin:   18:38
Oh, there's definitely still a conflict there, like they have a very antagonistic account of each other, but they're also - they grew up together, they're kind of the only peer the other has ever known. So they have this very complicated, contentious relationship.

Matt:   18:52
And now, given the hook that you use to entice people to this book, is this more of a sister-type of relationship? Or should I not picture them in that light? 

Erin:   19:02
You know, I -

Matt:   19:02
Your face says it all. 

Erin:   19:03
Without giving too much away like there's - I think you could probably read it in both ways, which is maybe a weird thing to say. We'll check in with that, I guess, as the book progresses.

Matt:   19:13
Yeah, we'll see when we're done, we'll see where we've landed. 

Erin:   19:17
Exactly. So in the middle of the night, Gideon is awoken by Isaac the Fourth, who's one of the teenagers. He comes to get her because he trusts her, because Magnus trusted her, and tells her that they found a body in the incinerator - because this house has an incinerator, also, because why not, I guess. And the body has been burned to the point that nobody can...

Matt:   19:39
No recognition?

Erin:   19:39
Yeah, nobody can tell what it is. There's enough left that they are able to determine that whoever was in there has been dead for weeks or months. So it was not a recent corpse, which does kind of allay the concern, until they also realize that Dulcinea is passed out in the conservatory somewhere, and that nobody has seen her cavalier in a long time.

Matt:   20:04
I was gonna ask, Dulcinea's cavalier, first of all, have you already told me about them? 

Erin:   20:06
No, he's kind of not an important character. He's this like, large man.

Matt:   20:10
Excellent. That's exactly what I was picturing. I'm picturing kind of like a Kronk-Yzma duo.

Erin:   20:15
It is a little bit of that, except less talkative.

Matt:   20:18
Right, anyway, go on. 

Erin:   20:20
Yeah, he's not - he's not exactly an important figure. Did I write his name down, even, anywhere.

Matt:   20:25
We'll call him Kronk.

Erin:   20:26
Okay. Anyway, so that's obviously a point of concern. Also, Dulcinea had the key that they won, and it's been taken from her. But she is unharmed, she's just sick. One of the other people - cause they're all gathered around like feeling these ashes, trying to figure out what they can from them -

Matt:   20:42
Respect for the dead.

Erin:   20:44
It's also determined that there's possibly two people's remains in there, which might be screwing with the data. The keys that Dulcinea had are gone, and it's revealed that the Eighth, who is the weird uncle-nephew duo, have taken the keys. And things come to a boil where they're finally almost at each other's throats. A couple of the Cavaliers fight each other to try and take keys from each other. The Second House, they're sort of the head of the military as well, they basically want to shut this all down, want to take everyone's keys, but nobody else is super on board with that. So, basically, just a couple of people get injured and Gideon ends up standing up for the Sixth to try and defend them from the Third. So they start to sort of break into some factions. Palamedes the Sixth he decides to trust Harrow and Gideon and they all kind of form a bit of a group with Dulcinea as well.

Matt:   21:33
So six, nine, and eight? 

Erin:   21:34
Dulcinea is seven.

Matt:   21:36
Seven, right, okay.

Erin:   21:36
Yes. So six, seven, and nine. And then the Fourth. who are the teenagers, they also join as well. 

Matt:   21:44
Right. Impressionable, young.

Erin:   21:44
Yeah, I think they're, like 15. They decide that they need to go look for Dulcinea's cavalier. They have a bit of an argument, but they decide that Gideon and the Fourth teens are gonna go down into the basement to look for him when they're down there -

Matt:   21:58
Okay, sure.

Erin:   21:59
Some spooky stuff starts happening. At one point, the lights flicker out and then come back on and "Death to the Fourth House" has been written in blood. They get attacked by this enormous skeletal construct. It's described the spider-like, like it's got all these legs and tentacles also, like, but like bone tentacles.

Matt:   22:19
Oh, alright. Sure.

Erin:   22:19
Gideon urges them to run, but they try to fight it, and it kills Isaac. But getting manages to haul the cavalier, whose name is Jeannemary, out and tries to get them to a safe place. And they hide in this one room and try to get some rest. But Gideon accidentally falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Jeannemary has been killed as well, speared through with bone.

Matt:   22:44
Isn't that suspicious?

Erin:   22:44
Just a little bit, and "sweet dreams" has been written above her body.

Matt:   22:49
Oh.

Erin:   22:49
And Gideon is obviously devastated by this, because she took them on as like, she was their protector, like they were kids, basically. She turns to Dulcinea for comfort, and Dulcinea explains that her house is like this house of artists, and that they love people who are dying because they produce a lot of thanergy - so before somebody dies, they actually become very powerful, if their necromancer.

Matt:   23:13
Okay.

Erin:   23:13
And Gideon confesses to being a fake cavalier, and Dulcinea explains that the phrase that she found, that "one flesh, one end" is part of the vow that a cavalier makes to their necromancer, because there's supposed to be like an official ceremony, which didn't happen.

Matt:   23:32
Which there wasn't.

Erin:   23:32
In the midst of all this, Silas, the Eighth, who's one of the - he's the uncle, creepy uncle nephew-duo like they call each other uncle and nephew and it's very strange. 

Matt:   23:40
Super weird.

Erin:   23:40
He reveals that he knows that she's a fake cavalier and invites her for tea, and she's not super into that, but we're gonna come back to it. Harrow tries to warn Gideon off of spending time with Dulcinea. They also unblock a door that has been sealed off, like it originally had a lock in it, but the lock has been sealed. So, like, somebody tampered with it, essentially. After this argument, Gideon goes and meets with the Eighth because she's mad at Harrow. Silas basically tells her - like they talk about the flu that killed all of the children on the Ninth, and that he knows about this because the guy who was supposed to be the cavalier, who escaped on the shuttle - the shuttle exploded, and he was able to contact the ghost, basically.

Matt:   24:22
Okay.

Erin:   24:23
He wants her keys, but she doesn't give them over. And his cavalier refuses to fight her, because he made her give up her weapon when she came in and then said, you know, "I promise I won't fight you," and he refuses to go back on that. So that's nice. So she goes back to the room that she and Harrow have been staying in and, I guess, just sort of on a whim, she opens up Harrow's closet and there's a box at the bottom of it. And she opens up the box, and in it is the head of Dulcinea's cavalier, which obviously doesn't look great for Harrow.

Matt:   24:54
Interesting, interesting. It's circumstantial, but it's uh...okay.

Erin:   24:59
So she takes this and goes to Palamedes the Sixth, who she sort of thinks of as the most reasonable person still there. They confront Harrow together, and Harrow reveals that she didn't kill him, but she did find his body and take the head. Some point after that, the body got burned.

Matt:   25:17
Why let it go to waste? Might as well, he's not using it. 

Erin:   25:22
We also get the information that Harrow tried to open the Locked Tomb when they were both children, and they've had this rivalry since they were children. Gideon, being mad at her, went and told on her to her parents, and in response her parents killed themselves, like they hanged themselves.

Matt:   25:40
Oh my god. Oh, that got - okay, fair enough that was a pivot right there, a moment in the story.

Erin:   25:45
And Gideon has blamed herself for this ever since. They gather everyone in Dulcinea's room, and she isn't super surprised to see his head. And Palamedes the Sixth guesses correctly that he's been dead this whole time, the cavalier has. And she explains that, yes, she was the only heir. And she's dying, she has cancer of some description, and something happened to her cavalier and the Seventh House all worked together to bring him back to life, kind of. I said he wasn't much of a character that's kind of why, because he's just been there in the background.

Matt:   26:20
Because he's a shell of a man.

Erin:   26:20
Harrow decides it's time to tell Gideon everything, and takes her to a pool.

Matt:   26:26
Okay.

Erin:   26:26
According to the ninth House traditions, information is supposed to be given like in water. I don't know why, but that's just -

Matt:   0:00
Noted, noted. 

Erin:   26:34
- they're in a pool for the rest of this conversation. Harrow explains, basically, that the flu that killed all of the children wasn't an accident, it was engineered by her parents in some sort of big ritual to give Harrow a lot of power, killing all of these children was going to make a super powerful necromancer baby. And Harrow basically refers to herself as a war crime in like, this big emotional speech, and reveals that she is basically the only person with enough power to open the Locked Tomb as a result of this. She also reveals that Gideon was also supposed to die in this flu, but didn't, and nobody knew why. That's why she was kind of mistreated as a child and why everyone was - like she had always interpreted their affect as dislike. But it turns out that actually, it was fear and concern.

Matt:   27:27
Yeah, the girl who lived.

Erin:   27:29
Exactly, yes. Harrow reveals that she once got a look inside of the Locked Tomb and saw that there was a girl encased in ice inside of it, like just a like a teenage girl. And this is supposedly the Emperor's biggest enemy. Harrow sort of fell in love with this girl at first sight, seeing her in the ice, and it made her want to live and like, gave her meaning that she wants to unlock this Tomb and free this girl. When Gideon told on her to her parents, Harrow was also supposed to hang herself, but she didn't. And they have this exchange where Gideon apologizes, and Harrow gets angry at her for pity and says that she's her only friend. And there's a line that's like, "I am undone without you."

Matt:   28:13
Aww.

Erin:   28:13
Gideon gives her a hug - they're still in the water at this point - Gideon gives her hug and says, "One flesh, one end, bitch."

Matt:   28:22
Oh, my goodness. Well, there it is. There's this ceremony. Fair enough. Good to make it official.

Erin:   28:28
Yeah, it's pretty good. So Gideon and Harrow team up with the Sixth, Palamedes and Camilla, to break into a lab, and they find more sort of information about, like, necromancer theory, and there's - these constructs, these monsters, are self controlled corpses to some extent. But they're interrupted by the fire alarm going off, so they - yeah.

Matt:   28:49
That's a very real world.

Erin:   28:52
It is, it is.

Matt:   28:52
For space necromancers, that's very grounded. 

Erin:   28:55
But they leave the room, and they go to see what's happening. They find that all of the skeleton servants have been killed, and they go to check on Dulcinea because she's just been on a couch for the past couple days, while all this has been going on, and she's like, "eh, just leave me. I'm already dying, like, nobody can really hurt me much." Like, we've gotten the piece of information that she has like weeks, if not days, left to live.

Matt:   29:19
Right.

Erin:   29:19
And they go to try to find what's happening, and they end up going to the priests' corridors, which they haven't really entered, and they find all these dead priests, and also Teacher, who is also dead. And they find the Second House, who are the military house. One of them is dead, the other one is very severely wounded and dying and the surviving - I think it's the cavalier who's still alive. 

Matt:   29:42
Sure.

Erin:   29:42
She explains that they came to try and call for help, and as soon as they came, the priests and Teacher attacked them. And it's revealed that Teacher and the other priests have also been like constructs that are mostly self controlled, but they have essentially been dead this whole time. 

Matt:   29:59
I feel like I could've seen that one coming. And yet I didn't!

Erin:   29:59
They'd been told that there wasn't really a way to call off the island, but there was, it's just that there was only one person they could call, and that was the Emperor.

Matt:   30:11
Of course.

Erin:   30:11
So they did send a message through and she says that he's on his way.

Matt:   30:15
The emperor?

Erin:   30:16
Yeah.

Matt:   30:17
Oh, alright.

Erin:   30:17
Teacher is sort of re-animating as they're having this conversation, so she stays to fight him, and die in the process, essentially. So they leave and run into the Eighth who say that the Third, who are the twins, and their cavalier, have opened up Abigail the Fifth, like her body.

Matt:   30:34
Oh.

Erin:   30:34
Everyone sort of realizes simultaneously that that's where the final key must have been, because remember Magnuson Abigail's key was missing. They figure out that somehow the key must have ended up inside of Abigail's body. Whether she put it there or someone else did remains unclear, but the Third have opened her up and retrieved the key and gone through the only remaining locked door, which was the one that was blocked off - a little while earlier, Harrow was able to unblock this keyhole, but they didn't have the key to go through it. They all rush off towards this door, and inside the room, the words are painted, "you lied to us," and they find all three of the Third - there's the twins, and then their cavalier. The cavalier is dead, and one of the twins, the beautiful twin, whose name is Corona, by the way, which is just a funny coincidence.   

Matt:   0:00
Sure. 

Erin:   31:26
She's crying over his body and Ianthe, who's the not-beautiful twin, but is the talented necromancer -It's revealed at some point that Corona actually has no necromantic ability and is a skilled sword-stress. But the third house had put forward that like, look at these two beautiful necromancers we made, because it would be, I guess, scandalous if not. There's obviously something wrong with Ianthe. They all realize that to become a Lictor is for a necromancer to kill and then absorb their cavalier's soul. And that's the "one flesh, one end" thing. 

Matt:   32:04
Mm, okay, so -

Erin:   32:04
Yeah, and basically the soul of the cavalier functions as a continually perpetuating battery. And it's kind of implied that this is what gives the Lictors immortality somehow, and also just a lot of necromantic power. The Eighth are extremely not down with this. They're extremely religious? Like they're very...

Matt:   32:24
Like cult-y religious?

Erin:   32:25
A little bit. I mean, everyone's a little bit cult-y religious.

Matt:   32:27
Very conservative and traditional, perhaps?

Erin:   32:29
Exactly. So he's like, I don't care if this is what Lictor-ship is, this is not okay, we need to kill her and just never speak of this again. So Ianthe now has all of her cavalier's fighting ability. Harrow stops Gideon from helping with this. Silas the Eighth also is trying to siphon from his cavalier to magically fight Ianthe, but the siphoning process leaves - at least the way he does it, which is, it's like an Eighth trick that they're able to do the siphoning thing really well, that's part of their their their specialty. And it's mentioned earlier that that can be dangerous, especially in a place like Canaan House, which is super haunted. And his cavalier gets taken over by ghosts while he's being siphoned and kills his necromancer.

Matt:   33:13
Then the Eighth is gone.

Erin:   33:16
The Eighth is gone. So Ianthe takes out what's left of the cavalier - his eyes turn into teeth, which is a fun piece of body horror. 

Matt:   33:24
That sounds unpleasant, but thank you for sharing.

Erin:   33:24
You're welcome. Gideon checks on Corona, the beautiful twin, because she's still crying in a corner. And Corona is not all that upset about the cavalier having been killed, she's more upset that she wasn't chosen to be absorbed, and Gideon's kind of like, "I don't have time for this, let's move on."

Matt:   33:41
This weird twin shit.

Erin:   33:42
They leave this weird room, which must have had, like that information that like this is what Lictor-ship is. And Palamedes has left the group, and Camilla, his cavalier, reveals that he's probably gone to go check on Dulcinea, and also reveals that he's been exchanging letters with Dulcinea for years and that they kind of had, like a pen pal romance going on. There's been like a bit of a weird energy between them the whole time. But Gideon is also definitely crushing on Dulcinea, and so there's been this weird, never spoken love triangle happening.

Matt:   34:14
Right.

Erin:   34:14
Necromancers aren't supposed to marry outside of their house because that sends the bloodline elsewhere, I guess, so it was always going to be a doomed romance. Dulcinea has been very cold to Palamedes this entire time. Camilla figures that she moved on and they all think this is a little bit odd. And so Gideon's like, I'm also gonna go check on them and tells Harrow to go get her big sword because she brought that, secretly

Matt:   34:37
Right. Sure.

Erin:   34:37
In addition to the rapier. Wants to go apologize for being a homewrecker, basically, Palamedes stops Gideon from following him into the room, and he has a conversation with Dulcinea where he reveals that she's not who she seems and not who she says she is. And figures that she was the one who killed the Fifth partially because Abigail was a historian and that Dulcinea was the one who hid the key inside of her because she must have run out of time and needed a place to stash it. The person who has been pretending to be Dulcinea admits to all this says that she boarded Dulcinea's ship and was the one who actually killed the cavalier, and that the whole story about the Seventh House revitalizing him was a lie. And she reveals that Dulcinea has been dead this whole time, it was both of their bodies in the incinerator, and that this woman who has been pretending to be her is one of the emperor's Lictors, who has essentially gone rogue.

Matt:   35:32
Oh.

Erin:   35:33
And is tired of fighting in the Emperor's war, and did all of this in an attempt to get back at the Emperor and prevent him from making more Lictors, and also to draw him back so she can kill him.

Matt:   35:45
Oh no. And it's worked. I mean, I say oh no, but I don't know - this emperor does not sound great. 

Erin:   35:51
Yeah.

Matt:   35:51
He doesn't sound excellent, you know. So...

Erin:   35:54
She is also sick, like that wasn't fiction. And Palamedes basically uses his power to give her "super cancer," is how it's referred to in text.

Matt:   36:04
Is it?

Erin:   36:04
Like just completely exacerbated. And he calls out to Gideon to, "tell Camilla - she'll know." And then he explodes himself in an attempt to kill this woman. And so Gideon, who is mostly sheltered from the blast, she sees that this woman has survived it, and is able to kind of heal herself. She calls herself Cytherea the First - she was afraid of being recognized by Abigail the Fifth, basically, as who she actually was. So the rest of their party, the surviving members of it, which is Harrow and Camilla, show up. Harrow gives Gideon her sword, and she and Camilla tried to fight Cytherea. Cytherea summons the big spider like tentacled construct.

Matt:   36:48
Ah, it was her!

Erin:   36:48
Yeah, because she's been controlling it. And they try to work together to constrain it, and Herro is actually able to make a bone cage, basically, for it, and Ianthe who's still kind of hanging around, and she's a baby Lictor. She shows up to fight Cytherea, they're more evenly matched power-wise. Meanwhile, the palace is collapsing due to all of the various traumas it has undergone. They're getting hurt, like Camilla gets hurt, Gideon's knee gets all screwed up, and though Cytherea is able to heal herself to a degree, she is still suffering from the super cancer. She's going to allow Ianthe to live because she's like "aw baby Lictor." But she does cut Ianthe's arm off, just to stop her fighting her. And as she's fighting Gideon, she mentions that she has spared "another Gideon" in the past. 

Matt:   37:40
Interesting.

Erin:   37:40
They're losing pretty badly at this point. Harrow is trying to contain this big construct, but is pretty weak. She tells Gideon and Camilla to dive into the sea and wait for backup. Gideon is like, "siphon from me," and she refuses to, and she says she owes Gideon everything, and they have this touching moment where Gideon forgives Harrow for anything that she did. And Harrow says, "it has been an honour to be your necromancer," and it's very sweet, and Gideon repeats "one flesh, one end" and then hurls herself onto these metal spikes.

Matt:   38:13
Oh, no.

Erin:   38:14
And then we switch to Harrow's perspective. And she hears Gideon's voice - and it's unclear if this is actually Gideon's voice or just Harrow's imagination - but it's telling her like, "Get up, start fighting, let's do this thing." And she's able to destroy the construct easily now. And she is able to see the super cancer that Palamedes gave Cytherea, and nudges it, and destroys Cytherea. And she says to the image of Gideon, "I cannot conceive of a universe without you." And the image of Gideon fades but says, "See you on the flip side, sugar lips."

Matt:   38:51
Oh. Oh. Oh, no. Why? Why did it have to be such  a devastatingly good line?

Erin:   38:57
I know. And after Harrow has killed Cytherea, she passes out, and she wakes up in a hospital bed, and the Emperor is there. And she's kind of shocked to see that he just looks like a normal middle aged man.

Matt:   39:10
Okay, that was my first question.

Erin:   39:10
Yeah, and he explains both that the change is permanent, because she's like, "bring Gideon back." And he explains that the empire is dying, they're losing whatever war this is. He's like a pretty reasonable dude, like he seems just very tired by all of this, and he didn't want this to go the way that it did. He says he wanted them to understand what Lictor-ship meant and then choose it. And they were also able to pick up Ianthe the Third, but he reveals that Camilla, Judith the Second and Corona the Third are all gone, they had vanished by the time the emperor showed up, as was Gideon's body. But he promises to renew the Ninth, fulfill her goal of - and asks her to embrace her role as a Lictor. And she agrees to do so, and he greets her as Harrowhark the First, and that's where the book ends.

Matt:   40:03
And that's where the book ends. Well, first of all, my initial thoughts, and I have been holding on this one since the very beginning, I love the blend between sci-fi and fantasy here. As you said at the top of this podcast, you have to convince people that it's sci-fi, quite often in my head when you said, "in the basement," I was picturing a dungeon, like a castle dungeon, you know? Not some sci-fi/cyberpunk...

Erin:   40:27
Yeah, it's more of like an evil scientist laboratory.

Matt:   40:30
That whole aesthetic and I have to say - 

Erin:   40:34
I feel like I need to show you like the cover of this book, too -

Matt:   40:37
Please!

Erin:   40:37
Because it's extremely good. 

Matt:   40:40
Are there images? Of our heroes?

Erin:   40:40
There are!

Matt:   40:41
No way. I would love to see what she looks like.

Erin:   40:44
She's a redhead. 

Matt:   40:45
Is she? 

Erin:   40:45
And they wear face paint, too, I think I forgot to mention that.

Matt:   40:48
Okay, that's awesome. You did forget to mention that, and that's a badass cover.

Erin:   40:54
That's part of like what the Ninth House does, like they're kind of seen as weird by the rest of the houses, which is saying something, cause they're all...

Matt:   41:00
I mean, the Eighth House can't talk, can they?

Erin:   41:02
They're all necromancers. Yeah, the Eighth House thinks  that they're heretics and cultists. And also she's wearing sunglasses. I don't know if you can tell, but that's also an important character detail.

Matt:   41:11
Indeed. On top of her skull face paint, a pair of aviators. While she wields her sword. What genre is this? I love it.

Erin:   41:21
I know. It's a bit odd because, yeah, there's all these moments that are like reminding that they have technology, even though...

Matt:   41:26
They use rapiers! And magic!

Erin:   41:29
Yeah, it's explained also that the reason that cavaliers use rapiers is so that when their soul goes into the necromancers, cause necromancers are typically small and wimpy, they can still wield the blade, because it's a light blade. 

Matt:   41:40
Yeah, you know, at the beginning of the podcast as well, when I tried to explore the magic. I hesitated before calling it magic, 'cause I wasn't sure, you know? Maybe this is some sort of future technology, but no, it's magic! It seems.

Erin:   41:53
It's very bizarre, yeah, cause it's thanergy, which is kind of explained in, like, a semi scientific way of -

Matt:   41:58
Midichlorians!

Erin:   42:00
Yeah, exactly, it's a way of scientifizing - that's not a word for sure -

Matt:   42:05
I mean, but I knew what you meant.

Erin:   42:05
- magic. It's something that people are born with, it's inherited magic. And how do you feel about that? Like merging of those two things?

Matt:   42:13
Love it. Absolutely love it. First of all, the word your looking for was quantifying, I believe.

Erin:   42:19
Possibly.

Matt:   42:19
Secondly, no, I absolutely love it. I - it's two of my favourite genres, right? And not genres that you often - at least not genres that I often - see cross paths. And I mean not to make a huge deal out of it, but a lesbian female lead. Awesome. 

Erin:   42:33
Yeah! 

Matt:   42:33
Great. Off the bat, you know? I will say, as kind of a general statement about it after having heard your synopsis, a lot of moving pieces. 

Erin:   42:43
Yep. 

Matt:   42:43
But tied up so elegantly, I love the way they finished it. 

Erin:   42:46
Yes. 

Matt:   42:46
I mean, you've been here for all of our recordings in the past, not all of the books that we have reviewed have ended so nicely. 

Erin:   42:53
It's odd because there's many characters, but they all have a role to play in the story that's kind of important. But it's a bit like wait, who's  speaking, what's happening.

Matt:   43:03
Totally, totally.

Erin:   43:03
I've lost track of the people here.

Matt:   43:05
Well and you know that that was a concern of mine. You announced, there's gonna be two characters from nine different - that's 18 characters at least, right. So that's - I think you've done a masterful job of summing it up.

Erin:   43:15
Thank you.

Matt:   43:15
Like I said, I absolutely love the way that they tied it up. And I guess that takes me to my next question, I kind of showed my colours. I was satisfied hearing it, did you enjoy the book? Just general statement? 

Erin:   43:25
Yeah.

Matt:   43:26
Were you satisfied? Do you want more?

Erin:   43:28
Yeah, I mean, I think I said this at the end of our last episode, if you caught that, that this was my favourite book that I read in 2019. It's just like that - for me, the perfect combination of like, story, and I love a complicated relationship like Gideon and Harrow have where they're rivals at first and then they build to this friendship, and I hope I got it across that like it feels very genuine as it goes. Like how it builds to a point where they trust each other so completely and that it makes complete sense for Gideon to make the sacrifice at the end of the story. I really liked it, is the conclusion of what I was saying.

Matt:   44:07
I just wanted to make sure that that point was clear because that's what we're doing here. 

Erin:   44:12
Yeah.

Matt:   44:12
Trying to give the listener general sense of how was this book? How did you feel coming away from it, or how did it make you feel? What were the highlights in your opinion? Sorry, that was a separate question, but I strung it together with the rest of my sentence.

Erin:   44:24
I really like this book, the style of it. I always encourage reading the book, but like especially for this, to see the style aspects of this because I think they're masterful, like the way they talk like I - "see you on the flip side, sugar lips" is a great exit line for a character.

Matt:   0:00
Honestly, honestly. 

Erin:   44:38
And the whole book is like that. And there's this really fun quirk that happens, and I didn't make note of it, and I should have, where a character will say something describing themselves or another character will say something about that character, and then it will be like, "said the blank." Like, "oh, you fool," and then, "'What are you talking about?' said the fool," that kind of thing, and it's mostly used for comedic effect. And then later, in the scene with the pool, Harrowhark describes herself as a war crime. And then the next line from her is, "said the war crime."

Matt:   45:09
Oh, that's excellent.

Erin:   45:09
Within the text. It's like a devastating bomb dropped in the middle of a scene, cause you're like, oh, no.

Matt:   45:18
Masterfully written, though, to be able to weave in humor into that scene.

Erin:   45:23
And how did you feel about the fact that the main character dies at the end and this whole reveal of Lictor-hood and the Emperor?

Matt:   45:31
How did I feel regarding the main character who was, for the record, my favourite character throughout the duration of the story? I think you hit the nail on the head when he said it makes sense. I wasn't devastated when she because I knew it meant and it was such an act of selflessness. 

Erin:   45:46
Yes.

Matt:   45:47
And it was just so her, which is kind of why I suppose. I'm saying this like I read the book, I guess again, that's the point. I feel like I know her, and I feel like I know that that's something that she would do. How do I feel about the twist of Lictor-hood? It had to be something like that, you know, it had to be something devastating. I was bracing myself for that. What did catch me off guard was the Emperor. I was expecting him to be a little more sinister, you know, a little more, I don't know, Voldemort- or Palpatine-esque. I mean, hey, that's a twist in itself. Turned what I was expecting right on it's head. So fair enough. And as you say, there's a sequel coming.

Erin:   46:24
There is. It's called Harrow the Ninth.

Matt:   46:27
Oh, love it.

Erin:   46:27
Some very lucky people, I don't think I know anyone, but like I've seen them on Twitter.

Matt:   46:31
You know of them.

Erin:   46:31
I know of them - who received copies of the ARC, like the Advanced Reader Copy. And I am very jealous of those people.

Matt:   46:38
Well, who knows, make a little plug there to the author. Maybe next time, for the last book of the trilogy. And that actually brings me to my next question......s. Just a few more.

Erin:   46:51
Smooth.

Matt:   46:51
Saved another Gideon?

Erin:   46:54
Yeah, we don't - obviously, this is probably going to be a thing in the sequel.

Matt:   46:58
Clarify, I feel like just in case listeners don't have our brain and aren't able to jump around like that, I'm referring to the line spoken by the evil Lictor lady as she was fighting Gideon.

Erin:   47:10
Well, we have a couple pieces of Gideon's backstory that don't get resolved in this, right, like we know that her mother came from some other house, and the fact that she survived the plague that was supposed to have killed her as a baby and Cytherea has this very cryptic comment. We have three pieces of a 100 piece puzzle.

Matt:   47:33
Clearly, she's special. And her remark? Another Gideon. What does that mean? Are they referring to another person named Gideon? Or are they referring to another person who had Gideon spirit?

Erin:   47:45
The fact that Harrow can see Gideon for a little while and speak to her, it's left very ambiguous as to whether this was her imagination or whether it was something actually occurring, and it wasn't present when she woke up, but, like will that be a factor in the future, potentially? Maybe?

Matt:   48:09
I mean, Gideon was also not present when she woke up, the body was...

Erin:   48:09
The body was gone, which is also an interesting open piece.

Matt:   48:12
Honestly, there's so many threads to pull. It's almost like they've got a sequel coming out in a few months. And last thread that I'm gonna pull, that I'm gonna poke at. Actually, that's a lie, that's not the last thread - actually, they're kind of one in the same. It's all going to the same place at the end. The emperor said, you know, "I'll help you achieve your goals if you embrace your role as a Lictor." Her goal is to open the vault.

Erin:   48:36
Yeah, I have to imagine that that's gonna come back now that she has -

Matt:   48:39
The means.

Erin:   48:39
Yeah, now that she has the means to do it, like that's supposedly the emperor's worst enemy, like who knows what that's gonna be. It's pretty clear to me at least that the Emperor is not saying something And even like Cytherea was obviously very unhappy - and we know very little about the broader war context - and it doesn't seem like her concerns were unjustified.

Matt:   49:03
Hmm. Highlights? Favourite part?

Erin:   49:03
I mean, obviously, I love the pool scene, like that for me was such an epic moment. 

Matt:   49:09
Yeah I can tell you love the pool scene.

Erin:   49:10
How about you?

Matt:   49:11
There can't be moments that I - like I like that Harrow decorated their room in bones. That's not... 

Erin:   49:17
A scene, but it is fun.

Matt:   49:19
For me, I guess. I mean, I haven't read it. 

Erin:   49:22
It makes it harder. 

Matt:   49:23
Yeah, but I guess for me, it wasn't really one scene, it was more the development of characters. Although notably many of those characters died. It is what it is.

Erin:   49:33
It's a bit of a bummer and, like, you get to know a lot of them decently well before they die. Like the teens, especially, get a lot of time development-wise that just don't fit into a summary that's gonna be in any way concise. One of things, I think, that's interesting, and I've had this conversation with a few people, that, like I said, I did bill this as lesbian necromancers in space, and it's -

Matt:   49:51
It's not not-that.

Erin:   49:53
It's not not-that. Obviously, neither of the characters uses identity terms at any point in time. But I do think it's interesting that the most important characters in the novel Gideon and Harrow, are both explicitly attracted to women, and yet their relationship is not explicitly romantic.

Matt:   50:07
Indeed, yeah, no, it's really not. To be honest, I got much more of a sisterhood vibe.

Erin:   50:14
Which is legit, like, and I honestly don't know if the author, if Tamsyn Muir has said anything about shipping or not shipping. Based on what little I do you know about her as a person, she's probably pretty open to any interpretation you want to land on. But I do think it's interesting that, like two, ostensibly lesbian characters are allowed to just have a relationship that isn't necessarily romantic. Which is cool. Although I would be lying if I said I didn't ship it a little bit. 

Matt:   50:39
I mean, but the movie star! Although I guess she wasn't really a movie star.

Erin:   50:43
She wasn't really a movie star, and she did die, although there is some very cute artwork. But that's interesting, too, that like you come away with seeing more of like a sisterly bond, whereas - and I don't know if this is just a matter of, like, where our brains go a little bit. And like, I don't disagree with that reading. But also there is that part of me that's like, but also, maybe they could kiss.

Matt:   51:05
Indeed. Maybe they could, maybe they could.

Erin:   51:08
I mean, not now, but -

Matt:   51:11
Who knows?

Erin:   51:14
Who knows?

Matt:   51:14
Again, I mean, necromancy! I will say, though, that further to your point, I even went into it expecting - because of unconscious bias, assume that the two lesbian main characters were going to have, as you said, an explicit romance between them and I came away markedly not that. They were, in my view, very clearly friends. So I think that's a good thing, agreed.

Erin:   51:39
Yeah, it's kind of nice to see I'm always here for some shipping. But also it's cool to see queer characters able to exist as queer characters without always needing a romantic arc involved. I don't know if we want to enter a bit of a discussion about themes or arcs...?

Matt:   51:53
General themesI picked up on, mystery, perhaps?

Erin:   51:57
Like I said, it is sci-fi as a general genre, but I would say it overlaps very strongly with mystery and with horror, too, there's a very strong horror component.

Matt:   52:07
Suspense. I wouldn't exactly call it a coming of age story, because -

Erin:   52:11
No.

Matt:   52:11
The characters grow a lot and they grow together, but they're...

Erin:   52:14
I guess there is character development in it, but it's mostly character development towards each other. It's not about necessarily growing as a person, and more about growing to trust each other, which I think is really interesting. I always love a good - I don't know if there's a name for this, but where the internal conflict can mirror some of the like external conflict. Like the fact that they have to learn to work together to get through these trials, which is part of the external conflict, that also mirrors what they're going through internally, which is having to learn how to trust each other on an emotional level.

Matt:   52:47
Perhaps a friendship story, plain and simple, you know. 

Erin:   52:50
Friendship is magic, question mark?   

Erin:   52:52
The real friends were the treasure...lycans. That's what we're going with.

Erin:   53:00
The real werewolves were the friends we made along the way. Even for, you know, this book isn't all that long. I think it's between 300-400 pages, just, you know, a pretty standard novel length, especially within sci-fi/fantasy. I felt at least reading it like the characters were very well developed. And that is - like I said, it's hard to make a trusting each other arc work - well, sometimes it can be hard to make that work just generally - but within a fairly short amount of time and to have us be attached to the other characters as well, and interested in where their stories were going is, I think, no small feat.

Matt:   53:33
I'm excited for the sequel. Well, I'm excited for you to read the sequel.

Erin:   53:36
I'm also excited to read the sequel and like, I understand why so many book launches have been pushed due to the ongoing COVID19 situation, and obviously I have a lot of empathy for the authors who have been affected by this, because I'm sure it's not fun on their part, either. It's not like they're getting extra time to work on the book because that's not how novels work. But I am a little bit bummed. 

Matt:   53:57
I mean, so it goes.

Erin:   53:57
It's fine. It happens. 

Matt:   54:00
Who knows, maybe by this podcast will gain a little more notoriety, you can -

Erin:   54:03
I'll definitely -

Matt:   54:03
I don't know, meet the author or something - as a guest! No, that's a little pie in the sky, maybe. We'll fly her in! With our massive budget!

Erin:   54:13
Yeah, just - consider this an open invitation to be on the podcast, Tamsyn Muir. Or, I guess, any other authors we have covered.

Matt:   54:20
Indeed!

Erin:   54:20
I'm open to any of you.

Matt:   54:23
Although the comment about flying you in was a joke, our budget is $35.

Erin:   54:29
We do not have those funds. But in any case, I think that wraps up our discussion.

Matt:   54:37
Any concluding thoughts before introduce the next book?

Erin:   54:41
This is a book that was hyped to me quite a bit before I actually read it like there were conventions that I attended and like people that I spoke to in the weeks or months before I actually read this book, and it was one of those books that I kept hearing like, this book is so great, like you have to read this book. And, you know, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but for me, this was the rare book that lived up to all the hype. Like I've read lots of books that are fine, but after having heard for quite a bit of time how awesome they are, I end up reading them and I'm like, it's fine. I don't really understand the hype, but okay. And sometimes it can be a detriment to the hype, like if you have really high expectations of something, it can make it hard to meet those. 

Matt:   55:19
Totally.

Erin:   55:19
But yeah, for me, this was the very rare book that, like hit all of the expectations, exceeded all of the expectations. And obviously that's just the opinion of one small lesbian, but...

Matt:   55:30
One small, very informed, very qualified lesbian. Don't sell yourself short.

Erin:   55:36
But it was a very lovely surprise to pick this book up, and I am a little bit attached to it I think for that reason. It's been exciting to like, bring some of this joy to you and I hope you've enjoyed that.

Matt:   55:47
Oh totally, I mean, not to speak for them, but I have, I loved it!

Erin:   55:51
I'm glad! I mean, you are technically the person I am speaking to, so.

Matt:   55:55
That's right. I don't have anything nearly so eloquent to say in conclusion, so I suppose we can move on and introduce the next book.

Erin:   56:03
So next week, we're going to be going back to fantasy, although maybe a bit of a different kind of fantasy than some people have seen before. We're gonna be reading Jade City by Fonda Lee.

Matt:   56:14
You've told me, very, very high level, a bit about it, and not to worry for the listeners because I've already forgotten. I've seen, I keep looking at the cover there on your bookshelf, it looks so exciting. 

Erin:   56:26
I think it will appeal to your sensibilities, as a reader.

Matt:   56:29
Interesting. Very curious to see - I'm even more curious, now.

Erin:   56:35
And I mean, we're gonna, we did briefly discuss it in our episode on Wanderers, which you should definitely check out if you haven't, dear listeners, but you'll finally get, I guess, the other half of the context for that conversation, which hopefully will be good.

Matt:   56:47
Wonderful. Well, can't wait for that. If you have enjoyed listening, and presumably you have since you made it all the way to the end, then please leave a rating, thumbs up, like or subscribe, depending on your respective podcast streaming platform of choice. You can find all of our episodes on buzzsprout as the Brodacious Book Club. And you could also reach us at brodaciousbookclub@gmail.com.

Erin:   57:12
And I've been Erin Rockfort, you can reach me @pineapplefury on Twitter.

Matt:   57:17
And I'm Matt Thomas, and for now, maybe next episode, you still can't reach me.

Erin:   57:22
Just gonna keep teasing them on that.

Matt:   57:23
That's right. Absolutely right. If I give it up. I lose all my power. The mystery, the mystique!

Erin:   57:31
Yes, I understand completely. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we will catch you next time.

Matt:   57:35
See you on the flip side, sugar lips!