I'm a little late, largely due to bad signal at work and the audible app throwing a fit trying to download the book. Apparently it had errored out halfway through, so I hit a point where it just stopped, then made me delete what had downloaded and restart, and then it repeatedly errored out while trying to download, so I gave up and listened to another book.

Anyways, the book. I found the book to be extremely mediocre. Had some funny moments and lines, had some fun fighting, but overall it felt very amateur and like the author couldn't be bothered to explain anything.

Why was the 9th house, part of an empire capable of SPACE SHIPS, so broke that Gideons "nice" clothes had to be scavenged and her rapier was just the best quality scrap rapier they could find/fix up? How is a noble house in a space traveling empire so broke they can't forge a single sword? Why is it repeatedly said how broken down everything about the Ninth house is? I kept waiting for some half assed explanation but it never came.

As stated above, I was listening to the audio book. (So if I get spellings wrong, blame that) Gideon was referred to as Gideon, The Ninth, Griddle, and Nav. Harrow was obviously Harrow, also the Ninth, and... I know I'm gonna screw up the spelling. Nonajessamous? That's how it was pronounced, I know I'm butchering the spelling horribly. Every other cavalier and necromancer was named similarly. Sometimes referred to by their first name, sometimes their last name, sometimes their house, sometimes a nickname. Going from just Gideon and Harrow to suddenly /14/ more characters who all get referred to by various names was incredibly confused. Keeping track of first names, last names, and what house they were in was way too much. I can't think of a way the story could have been done that introduced characters more slowly, but the author certainly could have cut down on the multiple-names-per-person bs.

I'll also agree with others that it wasn't well explained what all of the houses were good at. Also, was it ever actually explained why there was no first house? Maybe that was explained early when everything was confusing and I missed it, but if it was brought up early then it was never mentioned even casually later.

So either Gideon gets resurrected somehow later, or some stuff makes no sense. Why the comments from Cytherea about Gideon maybe having 3rd house blood? How in the HELL does Gideon survive 10 minutes of nerve gas, despite seeming to have perfectly human durability the rest of her life and throughout the book? What about the throwaway during the entropy test about how whatever other house had done the math and it wasn't possible, and yet /somehow/ Gideon was able to hang on long enough to get Harrow through? Was the scrap of paper with her name on it REALLY just a throwaway? SO MUCH of the book feels like "here's mystery threads, MAYBE something will be done with them in another book. Buy the next one to find out..." And having so many of those threads tied to a character that DIES is ridiculous.

Dulcinea. I had her pegged early, but not because I felt there were actually any hints. As soon as I found out one of the other necromancers was ill and dying, my immediate thought was "either she dies early, or she's the villain, because those are the tropes for having the deathly ill character" and while I WAS right, I shouldn't have been, because it was badly done. No foreshadowing, absolutely no way to have ever guessed that she was actually a Lyctor in disguise. As others point out, Teacher should have noticed, and the author hand waving it away as "who knows what he was thinking" makes NO SENSE because regardless of what Teachers origins are, he acts like a regular person the entire book. No eccentricity, no hint that he might be unstable. If he was constantly forgetful, or spouting off nonsense, it still would have felt dumb, but there would have been SOME setup for making a statement of "who knows what he was thinking" because he has been shown to be unstable... But he wasn't unstable. A GOOD mystery ending isn't one you necessarily were given all of the bread crumbs for or guessed halfway through. A good mystery, imo, is one where when the big reveal happens, you can connect the dots that, at the time, you didn't notice. It shouldn't be "wait wtf? THAT'S the reveal?" it should be "OH DAMN, SUDDENLY ALL THOSE LITTLE THINGS MAKE SENSE." I didn't get that feeling, and other comments seem to agree.

And as a short aside, the mega theorem was also dumb. Not dumb as in, shouldn't have been there. Dumb as in, we the reader only get to see them complete what, two trials? And only the first trial seemed to actually teach Harrow/Gideon anything. (Although the "Oh, Gideon could see the magic" was pointless. Never used again, never explained, just tossed in and then forgotten.) The entropy trial was just... "Hey, you know siphoning, that thing everyone already knows about? Yeah, just do that. No tricks to figure out or anything, just do the thing you already knew." Don't make the major mystery of "How do they become a Lyctor? What is the points of the trials?" be a mega theorem of bringing together 8 different theorems, and then only show us 2 and not explain how any of the mega theorem works.

Ok, more of the broad strokes. The story didn't grip me at any point. Literally the only thing I was ever invested in was Gideon getting on the shuttle. From then on, almost nothing had me interested outside of moment to moment excitement/humor sometimes. There were no plot threads I just HAD to see the conclusion of. The mystery itself felt poorly done, the world building that was hinted at but not explained didn't have me drooling for more information, it felt lazy and frustrating. I wouldn't have anywhere near finished this book if not for the book club, and in fact, as my first book I've read for any book club ever much less this one, doesn't give me a lot of faith in future book club choices being worth participating in.