On the 24th of September, which is tomorrow for me, you can purchase The Monster of Elendhavenby Jennifer Giesbrecht.
I am not by any accounts an unbiased bystander. I first met Jenn in Homestuck fandom, never knowing that she was the one sent by the prophecy to later write the Epilogues. At the time, we just took a lot of joy in talking about what it would be like if Terezi went to law school. I have had the honour of having written as her co-writer on Promstuck and Herobound – I’m sorry to say that the best thing we ever wrote together never went public, but I assure you it was rad – and having my debut novel and her debut novella drop in the same month is like having our children get married, except that in this case I will say that although it is usually “X and Y don’t deserve to have to marry Gideon and Harrow,” this is the only case where I will say: Gideon and Harrow don’t deserve having to marry Florian and Johann. Gideon and Harrow have suffered enough.
For me, there’s lots I could say, but I’ll only say this: Giesbrecht writes like a Jim Steinman song feels.
As for the book itself, I wrote this to her back when I got to read it early (which is my undeserved prize for having attempted to force Giesbrecht to write a story with me where Jade Harley was a pregnant superhero having shacked up with Equius and Nepeta), and I wrote thus:
[This story is like] “What if Prince Eric pulled up Ursula instead and pushed him continuously over a cliff and wrote little notes carefully in his diary the whole time”
Get it. It’s great. I love Florian, and I love Johann, but nonetheless they are the worst fucking train wrecks in the world.
We have the same editor, and just imagine what a shellshocked ruin he is at this point.
If at all possible, for safeguarding your own future entertainment, buy this book.
The last few weeks have been among some of the weirdest of my life. As I’ve got a day job and we’re under significant deadline stress, it was a good excuse to sit down, put blinkers on, and avoid every single note that has ever been sent to me; but I didn’t want to ignore what seems to be an enormous outpouring of kindness and goodwill to everyone who has read my five-act selection of weiner jokes.
Thanks to everyone who read it; thanks to everyone who read it and liked it; thanks to everyone who recommended it to a friend; thanks to everyone who wrote a shitpost about it, I’ve got to find the goths axis sheet because my editor sent it to me and I laughed for pure joy; thanks to everyone who reviewed, and who sent me a lovely letter saying they enjoyed reading it, and to anyone who read it and felt a feeling. Just because I am overwhelmed by it does not mean that it did not mean the world.
What I am also going to attempt to do over the next couple days, before I let myself indulge in looking at people cosplaying, because my editor sent me photos that I haven’t looked at yet, is highlight some of the first works that got me through the damn book. I’ve got two beloved playlists, and a piece of art that’s lived on my fridge since 2018, and a godawful house quiz. I was about to say, “if you do not want to live through these, block this tag,” but if you do not want to live through these I’m not sure what you’re here for unless you’re here for my Wizardess Heart play-throughs, which I’m sorry I stopped because I’ve dated like all those gruesome dudes by now and pretty much every single one of them is absolute nonsense.
Anyway, this week I will pay my respects to the ghouls who’ve loved me. The other thing I will do this week is the more important one, which is to tell you to buy The Monster of Elendhaven, but I’ll do that separately, in another post where I tell you that should you have resources to purchase The Monster of Elendhavenyou should purchase The Monster of Elendhaven.
Hello! I loved Gideon the Ninth so much!! and would like to draw fan art, would you mind sharing any helpful summaries of what each character looks like? or must us fans hunt through the book for every offhand line of description? (not that I'm not planning on rereading it anyway)
tazmuir Said:
I have let myself drift back onto Tumblr after two weeks, am deeply affrighted and excited at the idea that anyone has drawn my kids (I had an AMA on Reddit and as said there, my editor every so often hollered into my inbox about amazing shit people were doing, but I was too busy complaining back to him that my face had gone numb and that I no longer slept, but instead the darkness of the grave claimed me for four to five hours each night). Thank you so much to anyone who has already done this. Many people on my team have yelled and yelled.
Back early on in the piece I made a document for him about what characters looked like in terms of basic ideas/outlines for copyediting, covers and sense purposes, and I’ve dug out that document and slapped it up here for general delectation. As a note: I imagine specific things when it comes to my characters (I am a Kiwi: I write Kiwis In Space as a default) but as I have nothing but joy in my heart for how anyone would want to draw these characters, feel free to glance over this, then toss it out the window. It would bring tears of beauty to my eyes if anyone was like “Yes, but when I was reading I imagined Naberius Tern as a huge monitor lizard,” because absolutely yes, Naberius Tern was just a huge monitor lizard, godspeed.
I had only described below the specific cavalier-necromancer pairs, so that’s what you’ll find below, sorry if anyone wanted Teacher.
Dumb question, but are you an infj or infp? Because I know your old tumblr said it, but damned if I remember.
tazmuir Said:
Oh, my God, I am damned if I can remember either. I just looked and I can’t find it. I re-took the test with my students last year when we all took the Myers-Briggs together and I think got INFJ, but I’m not sure that’s quite correct because the last thing I advocated really heavily for was to “stop cooking”, so pT and I have been living off ‘fancy sandwiches’ for the past week and that doesn’t sound very INFJ.
I’m no good at these, I always distrust myself wildly when answering and no Sorting Hat test has ever sorted me into anything other than Slytherin, which drives me demented every single time. Then again, I want an answer it cannot give me (”You are a perfectly ordinary Muggle whose greatest concern in life is organising your Tegan & Sara albums”)
hi! so i discovered your book due to work - i'm currently working an internship at my local library and i was asked to peruse several different publication magazines to find new titles for the library to purchase. i found Gideon the Ninth through one of the listings, recommended it for my library, and now i'm personally so excited to read it! i just found your tumblr and i just wanted to share that with you :D can't wait to read Gideon the Ninth!
tazmuir Said:
This is enormously charming and I’m really delighted – I hope that Gideon the Ninth lives up to the promise of the listing and that you squeeze all enjoyment you can from its pages – but what is best about this is your profile picture and name, because now I am imagining Geralt of Rivia is really enjoying his internship buying cool new titles for his library. Bartender, he has witched long! Pass him the latest in speculative literature
(Hope your internship is rad! Man, it’s really cool to think that people will be able to take Gideon the Ninth out of a library. My mum is a librarian, and for a long time I worked as a library assistant, a career I had to give up because I can’t bear the touch of paper.)
Just wanted to say thank you for mentioning animorphs fanfic in your afterword.
tazmuir Said:
I am so glad that my twenty-three years’ revenge on my brother for daring to speak anything but golden encomiums of my work made someone happy. Thinking about Animorphs fanfic still has the power to make me happy, to be honest. The series was so good. Early fandom was so good. I was reading it back in 1997 and 1998, and following the series as the books actually dropped (when The Pretender dropped we all went absolutely out of our tiny little minds) was something I will keep with me for ever.
Unfortunately my brother reminded me just the other day over email about a fanfiction I wrote when I was eleven, about the cast of Gargoyles dying slowly and painfully after a nuclear blast. “I’ve been thinking about it after watching videos about Chernobyl and it wouldn’t have worked. They would have healed radiation poisoning after becoming stone in the daytime,” he wrote me. I hate him
So I linked to the first couple of chapters here on this very blog, but time got away with me and I didn’t keep up. Thankfully, my laziness means that you benefit with a masterpost of the whole first eight chapters of Gideon the Ninth!! Click on the read more for the chapters plus illuminating “last episode on Buffy” text which, for some reason, Tor.com let me write!!!
I love this cover, honestly. The title? Perfection. It reminds me of runes and old Irish oghams, as well as rib bones and such. And usually I have nothing to say about the reviews, but this one is genuinely the best possible thing they could’ve put on there. I fucking love it. Just the “Skeletons!” is so genuine and excited. A+ choice.
And the colors!!! That’s what I’m talking about! The title matching the bones and the author name matching her hair! That pop of orange! It frustrates me so much when they choose secondary colors for subtitles and taglines and author names that don’t coordinate with the illustration.
God, and look at that illustration. There’s so much movement around her, but even though she’s swaggering towards us (and I mean that in the best way), she’s a pillar of calm and self-assurance. Like, I don’t mean to wax poetic, but she is the eye of a storm coming to wreck your shit. The aviators, man. Everything about this illustration is both technically and conceptually perfect. Note how the background gradually gets darker behind her, but still grey where her jawline is painted black—it makes her makeup stand out that much more.
9/10, maybe I just found a bad crop but it’s shifted a little to the left.
The wild ride continues in Chapter 3! Here’s some of what you can expect:
Skurch (skull church)
Skayers (skull prayers)
Skunger Skuames (skull Hunger Games)
If you had not read the previous chapters they are linked here too.
This chapter contains a lot of Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus. It also hints as to the deeply nuanced backstory behind her personality (SPOILER: she was given three gifts by good fairies at her christening, the gifts of being a dickhead, being a creep, and unnatural bone love).
Happy Monday! It’s chapters one AND two of GIDEON THE NINTH, morality novel that teaches you how to be a good space goth!
If you love skeletons, the dark mysteries of the sealed tomb and wearing black vestments, congratulations, you are already a good space goth. If you love huge fuck-off swords, girlie mags and the army, oops, you are NOT a good space goth.
In either case maybe read the excerpts just to be sure.
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