A thread about the extraordinary first sentence of @tazmuir's Gideon the Ninth, and, in particular, how much work the phrase "dirty magazines" is doing.

1/18

The book begins: "In the myriadic year of our Lord--the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly prince of Death!--Gideon Nav packed up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth."

2/18

There's the magnificent worldbuilding of the ten thousand year Undying King; there's the narratorial flourish of the "!" that positions us not-quite-entirely in Gideon's POV (allowing the narrator, later, to point out her blind spots)...

3/18

There's the classic fairy-tale framing of a lone youth escaping childhood.

"Shoes" tells us she's poor, the little tailor; "sword" tells us destiny awaits.

4/18

But let's focus, for the moment, on "dirty magazines", because that's the most brilliant and hard-working part of this sentence.

What is "dirty magazines" doing?

(Tone, worldbuilding, character, conflict, in two words!) 5/18

In this high-Gothic fantastical sentence, just verging on overwrought, "dirty magazines" is suddenly jarring.

It's a crude, earthy irritant in the majestic gloom...

...just as Gideon herself is, in the House of the Ninth.

6/18

Gideon is irreverent, defiant, and crude. Her crudeness is on purpose; it's one of the few ways she can defy the cold, unloving, austere, somber place she's grown up in. It's a kind of resistance.

But!

7/18

Consider that these are "dirty magazines", not "porn", not "skin mags".

Her resistance is conflicted and embattled, internally.

"Dirty" is defiant, it's flaunted at her captors, but "dirty" also carries her isolation and self-doubt.

8/18

And also: her innocence.

That her pitiful list of prized possessions includes her sword and a stack of "dirty magazines" underlines both how crucial sex is for her, but also that she's inexperienced and alone in it.

9/18

This innocence, construed more broadly--G's defiant earthiness, her refusal to think things through too much--is crucial to her role as POV char in a mystery.

It allows @tazmuir to give us lots of clues that go over Gideon's head.

10/18

OK but worldbuilding.

Without "dirty magazines" this is the first sentence of a fantasy novel... or, perhaps, some Wolfe/Moorcock fallen-tech science fantasy.

"Dirty magazines" makes this a much richer, weirder world.

11/18

Into the thousand-year reign of the Undying King and the escaping girl with a sword, the present crudely intrudes.

Except...not. The present would be porn videos on Gideon's phone. But Gideon has no phone. (No one has a phone.)

12/18

The present, with its guns, phones, and internet, is not forgotten or lost or forbidden. It's just...disregarded. Not even scorned, more like: why would we think our preoccupations would endure?

The retro ("magazines") intrudes on dark science fantasy. estranging both.

13/18

But they're also not, say, "skin mags", which would be silly noir pastiche.

This isn't pastiche; it's not farce or parody.

This is a world that wants to be taken seriously; but it's one in which our expectations will be upended.

14/18

"Dirty magazines" also tells us something about the escape Gideon imagines.

Gideon's latched onto the only other kind life she's heard of, the military.

The magazines evoke, for us, a WWII G.I. -- pinups, pushups, barracks, "Sarge".

15/18

Lastly, "dirty magazines" tells us about Gideon's queerness.

"Porn vids" wouldn't. Evoking the 21st c., porn could belong to just a randy het.

But we know "dirty magazines" contain the kind of women Gideon (thinks she) desires: femmes, whether voluptuous or delicate.

16/18

An impoverished earthy defiant innocent inexperienced femme-loving butch escapes into a world in which gothic dark fantasy is mixed with weird anachronisms, in a story swerving through drama, horror, mystery, desire, and snark...

17/18

...all that from two words.

This book was written with a ferocious intelligence!

18/18