the thing about gideon the ninth is that it should not work. the whole thing sounds like a fucking disaster. you look at it on paper and it seems like a word salad made into a novel. there’s bible shit. there’s space shit. there’s whodunnit shit. there’s Human Anatomy and Physiology BIO 2102 and Lab shit. the characters have names like Williambert Decaheptagoneronagus. there’s internet memes for some goddamn reason. none of this should work. and yet somehow it all ends up not only working as a coherent novel and series of books, but being an incredibly profound piece of art on themes of grief, love, and human nature itself. it doesn’t pull any punches, even if sometimes the punches are protonjon quips from 2007. thank you tamsyn.