Gideon the Ninth

I spent about 80% of this book more than faintly interested in continuing the series, only for that interest to be dashed in the final, bizarrely drawn out "climactic" chapters. Everyone has struggled to explain what this thing is over the years because the plot is, to say the least, stretched thin. Probably the most positive way I can describe it is, "If good John Carpenter directed Dune." On the flip side, it's also paradoxically like if bad David Lynch directed the Thing. The vast, vast majority of the story takes place in about 5 or 6 different rooms and I still cannot explain their layout to you; at the same time we're somewhere on the spectrum of prequel-trilogy-to-original-trilogy character development. Ultimately, some of the characters are likable, and the universe (what we're actually told of it) is interesting, but the whole thing collapses like a flawed skeletal construct: shallow fantasy, shallow science, slow drama, slow action, and 50 pages of unnecessary appendices.

Absolutely believe the hype. Gideon the Ninth is one of the most singular books I've ever read--I'm not sure there's much else like it, and I mean that strictly as a compliment. Once you've finished it you will ache for the sequel. This book is an astounding accomplishment and an absolute joy to read. I'm legitimately jealous of anyone who gets to experience it for the first time.

Read 3 times in a row...never done that before. The first 2 times I did it to figure out what was going on in this intricately woven story. There were parts that I missed the first time through. I read it a third time just because I enjoyed it so much. Not since my youth had a book brought new ideas and images to mind like this. Highly recommended.