Gideon the Ninth

I really liked this. However, I had a real problem keeping the characters straight.

Conversations were kind of a mess. Imagine a rapid conversation between 2-16 newly introduced characters, where the characters are referred to alternatively by their titles, first names, last names, nicknames, or just their house number. I assumed I would adjust as we learned more about each character, but even past the halfway mark I kept finding myself going back to the online character guide to figure out who belonged to what house, who was a necromancer and who a cavalier. At one point I thought that Dulcinea's nickname was Corona, though that is an entirely different character. Later I was often confused if Coronabeth was one of the twins, or the twins' cavalier. It was incredibly confusing to sort out the cast of characters, and thus everyone's motivation except the two main characters was largely a lost cause. I was so relieved anytime it was just Gideon and Harrow cursing at each other, which were also by far the best parts of the novel.

At one point it seemed like even the author couldn't keep the characters straight- Harrow says to Palamedes “Sextus, your necromancer is wounded,” when Sextus is the necro, and his cavalier is the one wounded?

I am looking forward to the sequel. There are a lot of unanswered questions about the universe I am looking forward to seeing fleshed out.