Giveaway: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

[helloladies]

If you've escaped hearing about one of Tor's most buzzed about releases, congratulations. Gideon the Ninth was being heavily promoted at the beginning of the year, and people with ARCs who loved it were not subtle about how much they loved it. Tor pushed it heavily—there's some serious marketing behind the book—with lots of attention to the cover art, sneak peeks at the opening chapters, and most notably, a first edition print run with pitch black page edges, making Gideon the Ninth not only the most hyped SFF book of the year, but also one of the most noticeable physical objects to emerge from a mainstream SFF publishing company this year—that art.



All of us haven't read it, but renay read an ARC copy sent to her by a Mysterious Benefactor in late 2018, which has since then been a delicious mystery on top of the book itself, which is a locked room mystery in a crumbling castle in the middle of an ocean featuring a massive cast of necromancers and Gideon, an irreverent narrator who likes swords and ladies. Regardless of its contents, we're always excited to share books about characters who fancy swords and ladies. That's kind of our aesthetic.

We have one hardback copy of Gideon the Ninth (complete with black page edges!) to give away. You will also get:

• old key patterned washi tape
• sparkle skull stickers
• tiny aviator sunglass stickers

Some of these extras won't make sense until after you read the book. After all, the book is a mystery. (Okay, it's a lot of things. There's some genre blending happening. But mystery is in there.)

If this sounds up your alley, enter our giveaway for Gideon the Ninth—yes, even if you're outside the U.S.! THIS IS AN ALL-INCLUSIVE TRIP TO SKELETON ISLAND*.

* The urge to use "TO BONE TOWN" was extremely high. Yes, we're actually five 11 year olds in a trench coat.

Comments

[alwaystheocean]

I ADORED This is how you lose the time war, I read it last month, all the hype is 1000% justified. (By Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.)

I also loved the latest October Daye, by Seanan Mcguire, strongly rec that series.

New books wise I think before that the last thing I read was possibly the latest Francis Hardinge, A Skinfull of Shadows, which I also loved.

[aurumcalendula]

Three books I really enjoyed recently are Isaac R. Fellman's The Breath of the Sun, Kameron Hurley's The Light Brigade, and All or Nothing by Rose Lerner.

(also seconding the rec for This is How You Lose the Time War)

[novin_ha]

I've enjoyed a lot of different books I've lately read, but I absolutely loved Lesley Nneka Arimah's What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Jacqueline Carey's Starless and Tessa Dare's The Wallflower Wager (which had adorable goats).

THANK YOU for being open to not-US-residents! That's rare and lovely.

[goodbyebird]

I've been terrible at reading books lately, but three current comics I'm enjoying muchly are DIE, House of X, and Xena(they're flat out girlfriends in this 😭😭😭).

The last three books I loved -

[(Anonymous)]

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; Wain: LGBT Reimaginings of Scottish Folklore by Rachel Plummer; Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

3 Recommendations

[(Anonymous)]

The last three books I've really loved are Kill Creek by Scott Thomas, Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns, and Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty.

[(Anonymous)]

The last three books that I loved are Voices by Ursula Le Guin, Briarley by Aster Glenn Grey and This is how you lose the time war by Amal El Mohtar and Max Gladstone :)

[dolorosa_12]

I highly recommend G. Willow Wilson's fantasy novel The Bird King, which I reviewed here.

Like most other commenters here, I absolutely adored This is How You Lose the Time War.

And finally, because while I enjoy enthusing with everyone about new books, I wish there were spaces where I could enthuse about older works as well, long after they were first published, I'm going to recommend Sophia McDougall's astonishingly good Romanitas trilogy, which is now over a decade old (although being published in the US for the first time this year).

[schneefink]

Three books I really loved recently: "The Winter of the Witch" by Katherine Arden, "The Mortal Word" by Genevieve Cogman, and "Children of Ruin" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

[(Anonymous)]

The last three books I loved were "Enigma" by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo, "Selection Day" by Aravind Adiga, and "Girl Town" by Caroline Nowak!

[katarik]

This has been a rereading period for me as I'm going through book boxes and uploading to LibraryThing, so this is a mix of new books & old.

I really liked Seanan McGuire's _Girl in the Green Silk Gown_, I really enjoyed _Black Panther and the Crew: We are the Streets_ by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I continue to deeply enjoy basically all Agatha Christie. Probably the favorite reread of this Christie session was _Postern of Fate_.

[reyofheckinsunshine]

Just three recs... I can do that rather than waiting on the 25-week hold list at the library!

1. Geekerella by Ashley Poston. I know I'm late to the game but I just bought it from Ashley at DragonCon and devoured the entire book on the flight home. They're so sweet! The texting relationship! The feeling of coming home to con! The punny vegan food truck! The disaster child who is too awkward to tell the truth at this point! The stepmother straight from Captain Awkward!

2. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Oh gosh, I guess I have a theme going. Listen, sometimes you need those fuzzy tropes. These dumb boys who care a lot about the world and each other. Almost felt like a Merlin fic with the barcodes scratched off, and I mean that sentiment with the utmost amount of love.

3. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I know this book came out in 2014, but I just got around to reading it, and I can't believe I waited so long. If you somehow haven't already read it, don't make my mistakes, don't wait any longer to get to hang out with this family on their little spaceship. It's just like, yes, this is in fact what people are like. All of them. Just hanging out with my imperfect friends, in space.

[auroracloud]

For once, a book giveaway I can enter, OMG!

The last three books I really loved:

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (hee, this is a trend!). Time-travelling agent f/f with gorgeous letters delivered in unlikely manners and jumping between time streams and timey-wimeyness and weird plants and birds and seals and everything, wrapped in layered lush gorgeous prose.

To Be Taught, if Fortunate, by Becky Chambers. Seeking extra-terrestrial life, hope amidst calamities, and so much pretty science.

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee. This broke me and put me back together again in the best, most harrowing, most amazing way possible.

(sneaking in sneaky bonus mentions of Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho and The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells!)

[evewithanapple]

Last three books I loved:

Echo After Echo by Amy Rose Capetta
The Afterward by E.K. Johnston
Think of England by K.J. Charles

[starshipfox]

I've heard a lot about this book! I feel like it captures some kind of zeitgeist that's been floating around among SF/F fans for years, and we're all going to be wild about it.

I just read "The Shadow Cipher" by Laura Ruby, which is middle grade steampunk, set in an alternative version of New York. Three kids have to solve a cipher to preserve their home. It's wonderful escapism, and feels very optimistic, as well as dealing with pain and trauma in a real way. I was really surprised by how complex and good it was.

I also recommend "Other Words for Smoke" by Sarah Maria Griffith, which is a haunted-house YA novel, about a mysterious owl that can draw the reader into other worlds, but demands a terrible price. Smart, atmospheric, and full of awesome queer ladies.

Recs

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow which left me speechless, it's fantastic.
I also want to recommend The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall which is a queer fantasy take on Sherlock Holmes and it's fabulous.
If you want romance recs, just let me know you want to read and I can give you all the recs :)

[baggyeyes]

The last three books I loved loved loved were Martha Wells Murderbot novella series. All Systems Red, Artificial Condition and, well, the whole series! That’s technically four books, does that count??

I’m re-reading them again

[themadpoker]

The last three books I really loved were Volume 2 of Our Dreams of Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani (the whole series so far has been lovely), Emily Tesh's Silver in the Wood (Tor is killing it with all their novella publications lately), and volume 2 of Satoko and Nada by Yupechika (an extremely charming series about the friendship between two Japanese and Saudi women at university).