Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.
We had the pleasure of chatting to author Tamsyn Muir about everything to do with her new novel, Gideon The Ninth, including its inspiration, the rest of the series, and research. She also talks book recommendations and advice for aspiring writers!
Hi Tamsyn! Tell us a little about yourself!
Hi! I always think the main facts one needs to know to understand me are —
- I’m from New Zealand! I’ve worked as a teacher in the UK for the last few years, but I’m a Kiwi. I’m an Aucklander, but my family is scattered around the north island of Aotearoa, so I have adopted South Wairarapa as my new home (which is not a hardship).
- I’ve been writing short fiction for a while now. I attended the Clarion Workshop in 2010 and my first short story was published that year in Fantasy Magazine, and I’ve been publishing short-form horror, sci-fi and fantasy ever since.
- For breakfast I always drink a cup of tea, a glass of water, and have some yoghurt with oat bran mixed into it.
- I thought I didn’t like Hootie & the Blowfish but I listened to “Only Wanna Be With You” the other day and I thought it was actually really solid. I recently found out that Hootie & the Blowfish regularly feature in articles and polls about which bands have the worst names, which I think is unfair
Wait, none of these facts are that important!!
Gideon The Ninth is your debut novel. If you could only use five words to describe it, what would they be?
Necromantic idiots fail God’s test.
Now, let’s hear a little more! What can readers expect?
A bottle-episode haunted house murder mystery featuring, as I have described it elsewhere, “seventeen dolts in a space shack trying to become God’s dead best friends.” They can expect a mystery about a bunch of necromancers and their personal sworn swords trying to ascend to become minor deities while getting picked off pair by pair, while at the same time they can expect a metamystery about a weird necromantic solar system filled with bones and ancient tech.
They can also expect a bunch of lesbians doing swordfights. This is mainly due to my own personal biases (I am a lesbian) meeting my own personal interests (swordfights). Due to Charlie Stross’ incredible cover quote, “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” (accurate) I worry some people have been led to believe that this is something erotic or hard-hitting social commentary, but it is neither. A bunch of lesbians have swordfights and vague drama. People get murdered, people compete to see whose dark powers of bone and blood will let them become necromantic saints. I experienced all this in my youth, except for the sword fights and the murder.
What inspired you to write this?
I wish I knew. I was on a very long flight from Auckland to Heathrow and I’d been trapped in a plane for over a day, and it was airless and dark and I was cross. I guess it was analogous to being in a coffin. I came out with this structure for a story I wanted to tell about two girls in a very specific universe where necromancy was a real practice, and a challenge they were undergoing — I went home and wrote Act One before I went back to teach in September. I already knew the whole story. I guess being very uncomfortable in a plane is good for the creative nerve.
Were there any particular parts of the novel that challenged you?
The physical act of writing a novel with a day job is a challenge. Every time I meet someone who says to me, “Oh, I’m a teacher too,” even though I’m not a teacher any more I always terrify them by shaking their hand up and down and wishing them strength in low, urgent tones. Writing needs head space, continuous amounts of it. Many day jobs are not conducive to this. Teaching is one of the least conducive to it, ever. I loved teaching — I will inevitably return to it one day — but although it gave me a lot of things, the space and time to write was not one of them. Halfway though Harrow I hung up my hat, and my God, it made such a difference.
Did you have to do any research while writing?
I love swords but have never handled them myself. I’ve read a lot of fighting manuals, seen a lot of movies and reinactments, but I have soft hands and weak arms. I had to call in the cavalry — my swords expert, Lissa Harris, is responsible for saving me from the worst of my mistakes, except when I ignored her. Harris did my Zweihander stuff and assisted with rapier. She’s incredible.
Gideon The Ninth is part of The Ninth House trilogy with Harrow The Ninth and Alecto The Ninth to follow. How do you go about mapping out the series?
The Ninth House trilogy, a bit like Star Wars in its original episodes, is one continuous story — each book is its own thing and contained, but they are simply three parts to a bigger plot. That meant there was never any real macro mapping to do; I’m simply telling a big story, and working from Point A to point Z. I think it would get significantly harder if I’d written Gideon as a standalone and then wanted to return to tell the next bit as a sort of afterthought. I already wrote Gideon knowing what happened in Alecto, so I’ve been able to seed stuff from the beginning.
How are you going with writing the rest of the series?
Work is now underway on Alecto — Harrow is basically all done barring last copyediting stuff. So that’s a big relief; I can’t wait to finish Alecto. Not because I’m not having heaps of fun working on the series, but I’m eager to get it done before I get too much more feedback on Gideon. I want this whole trilogy to have been done basically without being affected by outside input, which I know is more or less impossible — but I feel that the weight of people’s feedback, no matter of what type, can really hamper sequels. Writing to expectation is heavy.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
You don’t have to write for anyone else. You don’t have to write for anyone who isn’t, frankly, you. Take all books about HOW TO WRITE with a grain of salt — the truth is that everything is a suggestion, not a rule, and any guide on structure or Hero’s Journey or whatever can be discarded the first moment it doesn’t work for you. Write lots of different things — write in different genres — parody other people’s work, parody your own work. Read widely. Have fun. The world of professional writing is like dragging your ego down miles of sandpaper — if you don’t believe in yourself and what you’ve written, there’ll be nothing left at the end.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for us?
Two books I have loved lately:
- THE UNSPOKEN NAME by A.K. Larkwood, which is unfair because it won’t come out until next year. Ex-priestess assassin to a powerful sorceror, Csorwe is forced to embark on an absolutely goddamn bonkers quest against the death cult she used to belong to. Extremely good lesbian romance, extremely good snakes. This is a classic in the making.
- SISTERS OF THE VAST BLACK by Lena Rather is a novella about a cloister of nuns travelling on a living spaceship, doing works and deeds across the galaxy. I haven’t finished it yet, but I can already tell that in a different life I would have taken up the call to become a sister of the Order of Saint Rita.
One Comment