Mitchell's Updates en-US Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:59:08 -0700 60 Mitchell's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg UserStatus1050632587 Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:59:08 -0700 <![CDATA[ Mitchell is on page 60 of 384 of Uhura's Song ]]> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan Mitchell George is on page 60 of 384 of <a href="/book/show/216847.Uhura_s_Song">Uhura's Song</a>. ]]> ReadStatus9340682177 Tue, 22 Apr 2025 16:32:50 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell wants to read 'The Black Company']]> /review/show/7510659619 The Black Company by Glen Cook Mitchell wants to read The Black Company by Glen Cook
]]> UserStatus1050043569 Mon, 21 Apr 2025 22:52:40 -0700 <![CDATA[ Mitchell is on page 27 of 384 of Uhura's Song ]]> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan Mitchell George is on page 27 of 384 of <a href="/book/show/216847.Uhura_s_Song">Uhura's Song</a>. ]]> ReadStatus9337737372 Mon, 21 Apr 2025 22:52:12 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell is currently reading 'Uhura's Song']]> /review/show/7508558196 Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan Mitchell is currently reading Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
]]> Review7458021946 Tue, 08 Apr 2025 04:04:00 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell added 'Death Count']]> /review/show/7458021946 Death Count by L.A. Graf Mitchell gave 3 stars to Death Count (Star Trek: The Original Series #62) by L.A. Graf
]]> Review7438034274 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 20:41:02 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell added 'Gideon the Ninth']]> /review/show/7438034274 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Mitchell gave 3 stars to Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) by Tamsyn Muir
3.5 stars.

Despite my lower-than-expected score, I genuinely did have a pretty good time with Gideon The Ninth, especially in regards to its worldbuilding and its characterisation. Sometimes you find a book you know is, at heart, genuinely fantastic, but just doesn’t work for you. Gideon the Ninth still worked for me enough to wrap it up, but certain writing styles are so diametrically opposed to my ADHD brain� it just doesn’t work. The people who acclaim this as a 5/5 masterpiece? I do get it.

Taking place seemingly in the far future, Gideon the Ninth follows the eponymous, orphaned, young adult who attempts to escape her home at the Ninth House for the sixty-something-th time, only to be thwarted by her constant nemesis/rival/lover/enemy Harrowhark, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. After a series of events, Gideon is forced to serve as Harrow’s ‘cavalier�, her swordsman, and joins her constant nemesis/rival/lover/enemy in a journey to the First House to work in a ceremony/competition to become a servant of the universe’s Emperor, alongside seven other pairs of Necromancer and Cavalier. At its core, the story is pretty straightforward - a mystery centered on Canaan House, with every character focussed on becoming a Lyctor, but all of the meat and potatoes lies in the characters, their very different views on, well, everything, and the richness of the setting.
Everything in the world of the Locked Tomb is based around Necromancy, an art which rears its head in a variety of ways - Harrow, for an example, is based around bone magic, summoning skeletons and creating bone shrapnel, whilst another pair of necromancer and cavalier are based around drawing on the latter’s strength like a battery. The setting of the book is very structurally and thematically dense; a lot of names, terms, concepts and everything in between is thrown out, with no real regard on if the reader should understand them or not. This frequently works in service of expanding its setting and making it more lived-in, but a lot of it - by choice - is used to confuse both Gideon and reader.

As a very ‘plot over character priority� kind of guy, it surprised me how much Gideon The Ninth worked for me despite its rather deliberately confusing chain of events, and that just comes from how much I came to love this cast. I understand the love for the gothic weirdness that permeates every page of this book; I understand the adoration for it’s weird, pop-culture infused dialogue and frequent non-sequiturs; but above all, I understand why the fandom is obsessed with Gideon and Harrow’s complicated relationship, and I was over the moon for pretty much any interaction they had. A single scene - the pool scene - pretty much saved this entire book for me, recontextualizing two characters entirely. And beyond that, I came to love much of the dense cast of this book, with great work going into making them feel fully formed despite limited screen time and a lack of exposition regarding their wants and desires. The way Gideon is unabashedly attracted to a number of female characters - with it just naturally being a facet of her character, no big moment where she’s revealed to be gay/bisexual - always had me grinning, or the way Harrow is an unadulterated bitch to pretty much everyone around her - ESPECIALLY Gideon - is delightful. The rest of the cast isn’t quite as well rendered as the main duo, but that’s unfair to the richness of these two. Everyone has a very distinct ‘voice� - even if I couldn’t quite remember their names all the time - and whilst sometimes a pair of Necromancer and cavalier might feel a bit too similar, Muir does a great job of distinguishing each group of characters.

The book’s chief ‘issue�, which certainly won’t be for a lot of readers, is that we’re thrust into the world of the Locked Tomb almost entirely through Gideon’s eyes. And as it would happen, Gideon as an individual is both uncaring and totally without knowledge of much of the core mysteries of the novel, and both doesn’t ask and isn’t told a lot of information that would be really helpful to get a hand on the madness happening at every turn. It does a really good job of hyping up the central mysteries of Canaan House, but when it comes to the nitty gritty - specifically the intricacies of the necromantic magic system - I frequently found myself very lost in the sauce and certain big reveals didn’t hit the way they should’ve as because I just didn’t understand the complex vocabulary on display. I don’t need to know every detail of the story to its own detriment to be having a good time, but I hate feeling lost, and I was very, very frequently - and again, by design! - lost.

The book also sadly suffers from a rather disappointing climax in regards to the central mystery, with the introduction of a character we pretty much - at first reading, at least - had no real idea was going to pop up, who proceeds to provide a lot of vague exposition that doesn’t quite go anywhere. Despite that, the final twist in the last two chapters was genuinely, heartbreakingly fantastic, and does a lot to both excite me for further entries in the series, and make up for the rather disappointing culprit reveal.

Gideon The Ninth is a very good book that has a writing style not at all tailored for someone like me; as someone who likes to know exactly what’s happening, Gideon’s detachment from the nitty gritty bothers me, but I understand this is a matter of taste. It does fantastic worlds at creating a foundation for a much larger story to take place - at least judging by the eerily fantastic epilogue - and creating a set of characters to fall in love with. One day, I think, a re-read will be in order, and I don’t doubt I’ll come away with a far more positive opinion. But sometimes the first opinion is what matters, and whilst I understand the acclaim the book has received, Gideon the Ninth will always settle for being ‘just very good�, and that’s not so bad, no?
]]> ReadStatus9264673075 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 18:54:56 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell is currently reading 'Death Count']]> /review/show/7458021946 Death Count by L.A. Graf Mitchell is currently reading Death Count by L.A. Graf
]]> Review7438034274 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 03:58:36 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell added 'Gideon the Ninth']]> /review/show/7438034274 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Mitchell gave 3 stars to Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) by Tamsyn Muir
3.5 stars.

Despite my lower-than-expected score, I genuinely did have a pretty good time with Gideon The Ninth, especially in regards to its worldbuilding and its characterisation. Sometimes you find a book you know is, at heart, genuinely fantastic, but just doesn’t work for you. Gideon the Ninth still worked for me enough to wrap it up, but certain writing styles are so diametrically opposed to my ADHD brain� it just doesn’t work. The people who acclaim this as a 5/5 masterpiece? I do get it.

Taking place seemingly in the far future, Gideon the Ninth follows the eponymous, orphaned, young adult who attempts to escape her home at the Ninth House for the sixty-something-th time, only to be thwarted by her constant nemesis/rival/lover/enemy Harrowhark, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. After a series of events, Gideon is forced to serve as Harrow’s ‘cavalier�, her swordsman, and joins her constant nemesis/rival/lover/enemy in a journey to the First House to work in a ceremony/competition to become a servant of the universe’s Emperor, alongside seven other pairs of Necromancer and Cavalier. At its core, the story is pretty straightforward - a mystery centered on Canaan House, with every character focussed on becoming a Lyctor, but all of the meat and potatoes lies in the characters, their very different views on, well, everything, and the richness of the setting.
Everything in the world of the Locked Tomb is based around Necromancy, an art which rears its head in a variety of ways - Harrow, for an example, is based around bone magic, summoning skeletons and creating bone shrapnel, whilst another pair of necromancer and cavalier are based around drawing on the latter’s strength like a battery. The setting of the book is very structurally and thematically dense; a lot of names, terms, concepts and everything in between is thrown out, with no real regard on if the reader should understand them or not. This frequently works in service of expanding its setting and making it more lived-in, but a lot of it - by choice - is used to confuse both Gideon and reader.

As a very ‘plot over character priority� kind of guy, it surprised me how much Gideon The Ninth worked for me despite its rather deliberately confusing chain of events, and that just comes from how much I came to love this cast. I understand the love for the gothic weirdness that permeates every page of this book; I understand the adoration for it’s weird, pop-culture infused dialogue and frequent non-sequiturs; but above all, I understand why the fandom is obsessed with Gideon and Harrow’s complicated relationship, and I was over the moon for pretty much any interaction they had. A single scene - the pool scene - pretty much saved this entire book for me, recontextualizing two characters entirely. And beyond that, I came to love much of the dense cast of this book, with great work going into making them feel fully formed despite limited screen time and a lack of exposition regarding their wants and desires. The way Gideon is unabashedly attracted to a number of female characters - with it just naturally being a facet of her character, no big moment where she’s revealed to be gay/bisexual - always had me grinning, or the way Harrow is an unadulterated bitch to pretty much everyone around her - ESPECIALLY Gideon - is delightful. The rest of the cast isn’t quite as well rendered as the main duo, but that’s unfair to the richness of these two. Everyone has a very distinct ‘voice� - even if I couldn’t quite remember their names all the time - and whilst sometimes a pair of Necromancer and cavalier might feel a bit too similar, Muir does a great job of distinguishing each group of characters.

The book’s chief ‘issue�, which certainly won’t be for a lot of readers, is that we’re thrust into the world of the Locked Tomb almost entirely through Gideon’s eyes. And as it would happen, Gideon as an individual is both uncaring and totally without knowledge of much of the core mysteries of the novel, and both doesn’t ask and isn’t told a lot of information that would be really helpful to get a hand on the madness happening at every turn. It does a really good job of hyping up the central mysteries of Canaan House, but when it comes to the nitty gritty - specifically the intricacies of the necromantic magic system - I frequently found myself very lost in the sauce and certain big reveals didn’t hit the way they should’ve as because I just didn’t understand the complex vocabulary on display. I don’t need to know every detail of the story to its own detriment to be having a good time, but I hate feeling lost, and I was very, very frequently - and again, by design! - lost.

The book also sadly suffers from a rather disappointing climax in regards to the central mystery, with the introduction of a character we pretty much - at first reading, at least - had no real idea was going to pop up, who proceeds to provide a lot of vague exposition that doesn’t quite go anywhere. Despite that, the final twist in the last two chapters was genuinely, heartbreakingly fantastic, and does a lot to both excite me for further entries in the series, and make up for the rather disappointing culprit reveal.

Gideon The Ninth is a very good book that has a writing style not at all tailored for someone like me; as someone who likes to know exactly what’s happening, Gideon’s detachment from the nitty gritty bothers me, but I understand this is a matter of taste. It does fantastic worlds at creating a foundation for a much larger story to take place - at least judging by the eerily fantastic epilogue - and creating a set of characters to fall in love with. One day, I think, a re-read will be in order, and I don’t doubt I’ll come away with a far more positive opinion. But sometimes the first opinion is what matters, and whilst I understand the acclaim the book has received, Gideon the Ninth will always settle for being ‘just very good�, and that’s not so bad, no?
]]> ReadStatus9236183305 Wed, 26 Mar 2025 16:31:53 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell is currently reading 'Gideon the Ninth']]> /review/show/7438034274 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Mitchell is currently reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
]]> Rating840651023 Wed, 26 Mar 2025 16:30:51 -0700 <![CDATA[Mitchell George liked a review]]> /
Mitchell George liked Teigy's review of Birdy:
Birdy by Sharon Kernot
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