No no hear me out—

What if sword lesbians.

AND goth gf.

And, and, we set it in Warhammer 40k, right?, but take all that gross hypermasculinity out of it. And, also, they’re all in necromancy school chūnin exam! But there’s a murderer! Maybe it’s the monster? I mean the one haunting the castle. Where the tournament arc happens. It’s in a haunted castle. For necromancers. In space. With murders.

This book is an amusement park ride going right through a big black pool filled with sheer unabashed glee. And skeletons. A lot of skeletons. I love it so much. Both the fencing ~and~ the necromancy are exquisitely, lovingly detailed, and they aren’t even the best part because the characters are so great, the plot so hooking. Nine skulls out of five.

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Audiobook is great, Moira is a fantastic voice actor, but some stuff doesn’t work well in linear format—have the charts with the Nine Houses and the dramatis personæ at hand.