To celebrate our ten year anniversary, we are inviting back former writers back to tpc in order to hear what they’ve been thinking about since leaving the post calvin. Today, please welcome back Geneva Langeland. Geneva (’13) lives with her little cat in a little house. She works as a science communicator at Michigan Sea Grant in Ann Arbor, MI, where she gets to hang out with educators, researchers, and communicators who love the Great Lakes as much as she does.
In the depths of a decrepit noble house cracked into the heart of a cold, dead planet, a young woman named Gideon Nav reluctantly paints her face into a black-and-white skull and shoulders her broadsword for a fresh round of training. Her opponents are a cadre of clacking skeletons, reanimated and thrust into battle by a sharp-faced necromancer swathed in black lace: Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last daughter of a dead house, determined to prove herself a worthy protector of an ancient god-emperor. Within a few chapters, Gideon and Harrow will be exiting a space shuttle into a world of rapier duels, 10,000-year-old secrets, and bones. So, so many bones.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a wild ride. GtN and its sequels, Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth, are collectively known as “the Locked Tomb.” As an avid sci-fi/fantasy lover, I’ve always found it easy to rabbit-hole into fantastical worlds. But Muir’s novels have punched deeper into my psyche than any other media I’ve devoured.
I own the books in hardback, paperback, and audio. I’ve consumed each format multiple times. Last year, I scoured thrift stores to assemble a cosplay outfit befitting a sword-wielding warrior nun. I do bicep curls under the sardonic grins of multiple fan-drawn Gideons, printed out and tacked to a bulletin board in my home office. I have a Google alert set to ping me whenever the author’s name is mentioned online in ravenous anticipation of news about the fourth, concluding volume in the series.
I’m not alone in adoring these books. Gideon the Ninth cartwheeled onto bestseller lists and was named one of the best books of 2019 by NPR and multiple other literary outfits. The series has topped award shortlists and dazzled big names in the sci-fi/fantasy genres. GtN’s cover blurb has been trimmed into an oft-repeated and winking sales pitch: “Lesbian necromancers in space!”
It’s frankly astonishing that the Locked Tomb has soared so high because—y’all, it’s WEIRD. The series is science-fiction (space stations! Interplanetary invasions!) but it’s also fantasy (sword fights! Blood magic!) and also gothic horror (gooey, gruesome deaths in a moldering mansion!). Tamsyn Muir cut her authorial teeth in the gleefully chaotic world of internet fanfiction, and her books are peppered with memes and cheeky Tumblr references. Then, in the next sentence, she’ll slide in an obscure nod to Greek mythology that will require two more books to actually make sense. The books reward re-reads and deep dives into Reddit threads unpacking the etymological origins of characters’ names. Muir’s genre-warping and quirky style make her books hard to categorize and tricky to recommend—my friends have either fallen head-over-heels for her writing or given up after a couple of chapters.
The books also play with character archetypes and relationship expectations. Most of the characters are young women, and many are generally oriented to be attracted to each other. But this is no steamy YA fantasy. Instead of romantic pairings, the most vital and interesting relationships are between necromancers and their protective, sword-wielding cavaliers. These bonds run soul-deep and might look familial, dutiful, passionate, friendly, begrudging, or downright obsessive. As a queer and asexual person, I can hardly express how refreshing it can be when stories leave room for love to be multifaceted, aromantic, and uneasy. When I want my characters to smooch, I’ll pick up a different book.
The Locked Tomb also scratches another of my psychological itches: pulling back the curtain on religion. I left Christianity in 2018 and now sit solidly in the agnostic-to-atheist camp. I’m fascinated by the psychology of religion, trying to understand the emotional and intellectual needs that religions serve or tracing how believers get manipulated by cults. I want to trace the ways stories become legends, legends transmute into beliefs, beliefs beget worship, and worship builds religion. In short, I want to pull back the curtain on religion to see where humans are pulling the strings.
The world of the Locked Tomb is ruled by a god-emperor who saved humanity from an unnamed cataclysm in the far-distant past. He now keeps the sun alight and the planets spinning, revered as an immortal king and worshiped as an omnipotent deity. Endless wars of conquest are fought in his name, and religious adherence is a social obligation on dozens of worlds.
And then—spoilers for events at the end of Gideon the Ninth—a battered Harrow wakes up to find God sitting next to her bed. He’s brunette and drinks tea. His name is John. He’s just some rumpled guy who somehow kept the solar system afloat for 10,000 years. His story became legend, and legend became worship. Teasing apart the roots and implications of that process becomes a plot thread weaving through the rest of the series.
Reading the Locked Tomb, it sometimes feels like Tamsyn Muir reached into my brain and gave me exactly what I’ve needed in the last few years: some weird, clever books in a rich fantastical world, filled with characters stumbling toward each other on a journey of survival and growth. If any of that sounds like your jam, pick up a copy of Gideon the Ninth. I can’t promise you’ll fall in love. But I can promise a wild ride.
If you are a former writer and interested in contributing this year, email info@thepostcalvin.com
Geneva Langeland (’13) survived graduate school with minimal blood loss, escaping with her ms in environmental policy and communication. She now works in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as the communications editor at Michigan Sea Grant. There, she gets to hang out with educators, researchers, and communicators who love the Great Lakes as much as she does.
