Harrow the Ninth

The first book was very crazy and chaotic but the end result was acceptable, now this one, Harrow, was hard to grasp. The non-linear narrative (a lot of back and forth), 3rd person vs. 2nd person is very unconventional and hard to digest, confusing.

Harrowhark’s new life has come at a terrible cost. As she struggles to become what the emperor needs, her mind and body fight against her every step of the way. Alongside the other children of the undying emperor, Harrow is weak and expendable. She must watch her back constantly, or else be struck down. And time grows short as the soul of a long-dead planet stalks them, intent on killing the necromancer who ended its life. Harrow must fight through the insanity threatening to claim her and learn to embrace her full power before it is too late.

Harrow the Ninth takes a swift departure from the narrative readers knew in Gideon the Ninth. I expected some change, but I did not expect the twisted perspective this book was written in. The timeline is non-linear. Readers will experience flashbacks intermingled with what can be assumed as present times. Although with the narration it is hard to tell. Readers are going to have to put the pieces together themselves as Harrow’s mental state is perfectly captured in the way the story is written. Are you confused? So is Harrow, and Tamsyn Muir is a daring and creative author to paint this entire book in a way that makes the reader experience what Harrow feels.

The way Harrow the Ninth is written can best be described as deliciously deceptive. This was a slower read for me as, as my mind was trying to put pieces of the puzzle together and make sense of what I was reading. But Tamsyn Muir’s prose is gothic, dark and so emotional that I loved every minute of it. Her use of necromancy in battle is fascinating and the stakes are always high. By the time you reach the end, you will be left with a new understanding of the world and demanding the next book. Because while you may understand the world, the characters have so many more questions to answer.

Sooooo….this is a hard review to write, because this is an incredibly hard and frustrating book to read. I’d probably give it 3.5 stars, because it works REALLY hard in the last quarter of the book to redeem the first three-fourths. Does it do it? I’m still not sure. I’m still annoyed at it, so maybe not.

This would have been a really good first book, because it basically rewrites the entire first book in addition to ignoring the romance developed until way past when you’ve decided it’s never going to be addressed. I almost would have preferred this be half again as long and taken the time to develop the emotions it did in the first book to shore up the story in this one.

Several friends of mine either DNFed it or were similarly annoyed, so I was at least warned that there might be things I wouldn’t like, so if you want to read this, be warned that it takes an effort to get through the story. The ending is really good, but I’m not sure it’s good enough to make up for the first half to two-thirds of the book.

Gideon the Ninth was one of the best reads of 2020, probably one of my favorite books of all time, so I had high expectations for Harrow the Ninth. Gideon‘s explosive ending left far more questions than answers and set Harrow off into space with the in-universe equivalent of God. With Gideon dead as well as the rest of the heirs and cavaliers, Harrow and Ianthe are left behind as imperfect Lyctors in service to the Emperor, whose plans are both secretive and myriad. Harrow the Ninth did a beautiful job expanding the Locked Tomb universe and bringing us a new narrator without losing any of the charm that so entranced us all in Gideon. None of the complexity or relationships I got so attached to were sacrificed with the change in point of view or genre, and even though it took a while for the plot to really get going, it was still a brilliant entry into the SFF genre.

Harrow the Ninth opens with a distinct sense of unreality: Harrow, our new narrator, is now working for the Emperor, using her necromantic abilities to fight new monsters and discover other planes of reality, but Harrow’s memories and understanding of the world are distorted and false. She recalls the events of the first book with shocking falsity. Ortus, the cavalier who originally abandoned her which forced her to choose Gideon in the first place has taken Gideon’s place in her mind. She thinks characters who are alive are now dead, dead characters are still alive, and remembers nothing of the original Lyctor betrayal from the first book, remembering a mysterious new monster called the Sleeper instead. As Harrow goes through her memories and works on her new tasks, she is haunted by the spectre of a corpse, the image of the Body she saw when she descended into the Locked Tomb as a child. All the while, the Emperor and his own previous Lyctors work to take down monstrous planets full of necromantic energy while Harrow and her unlikely ally, Ianthe, try to survive in this strange new world.

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on in this book. My only complaint, however minor, is that it takes a bit for us to work through all these new elements and for the plot to fully start. Harrow is such an intriguing new narrator and lives such a different life than we thought she did in the first book that Harrow takes a while to set up, perhaps longer than was necessary. It did ultimately pay off in the end, with all threads coming together eventually, but for a while it felt like we were entirely immersed in exposition only.

I fell in love with Gideon’s narration so hard in the first book that I was afraid I wouldn’t connect with Harrow as much; one of the main reasons I loved Gideon the Ninth was Gideon’s irreverent attitude and snarky asides in a gothic and unforgiving world. I thought Harrow’s stricter mindset and less overtly funny attitude might push me away, but I’m thrilled to report that Harrow is just as thrilling as Gideon was as a narrator. We trade sex jokes and attitude for deadpan humor and genius unreliable narration; very different vibes, but impeccably detailed and characterized nonetheless. I’ll warn that Harrow the Ninth is much darker beast that Gideon was, more overt orders, but I greatly appreciated the descent into bleaker territory. If we were going to have a trilogy set in a universe run by dark necromantic magic and never used that setting to its full gothic potential, I would’ve been disappointed. Harrow’s narration ended up being one of my favorite things about the book simply because of how bleak and unusual it is. Her false memories that no one will correct her on, her declining health, inability to access her Lyctor abilities, and her continuous hallucinations of the Body from the Locked Tomb make for a deeply eerie experience. Harrow, in her own words, is insane. Her reality is unstable and cannot be trusted, yet she has immense abilities and now has been granted a position at the Emperor’s right hand. Her voice, so unlike Gideon’s frank and funny thoughts, is an unusual change for a series to make in the middle of its serialization, but ensured that the narrative stayed fresh and brought something new to the table.

And if you think that the loss of Gideon’s irreverent personality will turn you off the series, don’t worry. The Emperor, the Necrolord Prime, and God himself takes the place of the narrative funnyman. Imagine if an awkward dad from our time ended up in this universe, that’s what he’s like. We are introduced to several new characters in Harrow’s new life, most prominently being the Emperor and his pre-existing Lyctors, and while the cast isn’t quite as full as the locked-room murder mystery that Gideon the Ninth was, they more than make up for it in characterization and complexity. And if you’re missing the characters from the last book, you can still find them in Harrow the Ninth; Harrow’s time spent recalling her faulty memory ensures that we get more time and content with characters you thought you’d never hear from again.

So frequently I feel like middle books in a trilogy lapse in quality or struggle to find their footing among a greater plot, but Harrow the Ninth didn’t disappoint at all. The novel lost none of its depth and density, retaining the same immense amount of worldbuilding, plot complexity, and offbeat humor that made Gideon the Ninth so great. It’s a novel you have to be a little more patient with; despite being a sequel, Harrow’s mind is a whole new world that needs to be set up, but if you’re willing to wait, the payoff is immense. Tamsyn Muir obviously has immense skill in worldbuilding and characterization, but the plot she’s created is so intricate I have no idea how this story will end. My only true disappointment is that its sequel, Alecto the Ninth, was pushed back until 2022 and now I have to wait a whole year to see how this absolute rollercoaster of a series ends.

I don’t have too much more to add to the endless string of superlatives showered on Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb Trilogy: both Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth are superb.

Instead, I’ll offer two musical analogies that put her books in context for me. Indulge, if you will.

Harrow the Ninth feels to me like a transformation in 21st century fantasy, an advance in the form. It’s more fleet, more playful, more sophisticated. It makes me think of the evolution from big band jazz to bebop in the 1940s. This feels similar: the ponderous, endless-waiting-for-the-next fantasies of the 2000s (GRRM & Rothfuss as pointed examples) giving way to a stylistic shift that operates on a different level. Full of quick twists, layered storytelling, breakneck pacing, witty characters, outrageous feats of imagination and originality. Muir has made dinosaurs of that earlier style of fantasy, in so many ways.

On to my second musical analogy.

When I first started my working after college, I worked at a rock radio station. One disc jockey had been in the business since the early 1970s. He was a guitar player, as was I, so we talked guitars. He told me about a time in the early ‘80s when the station he worked at in Miami did an event at a Van Halen concert. This DJ was backstage before the show and happened upon Eddie Van Halen warming up. Just running licks, warming up his fingers.

My DJ friend told me he went home after having seen that, put his own guitar in the case, and didn’t play again for a full year.

I know that feeling, now. Thanks Tamsyn!

Do you remember when I told you about Gideon The Ninth in a previous review of mine and how much I was looking forward to reading the sequel, Harrow The Ninth?

Well, I wasn’t ready for this book at all.

And if I read it again, I’m sure I’m not ready yet.

Harrow the Ninth is the second book of The Locked Tomb Trilogy and it’s a really complex book. The author sows clues everywhere and it’s like being subjected to a series of emotional imprints.
It’s certainly a book that excites, encourages and involves the reader.

A unique book of its kind.

During the reading will not make you understand anything, but I assure you that you will get all the answers to the questions you have asked yourself.

New characters have been introduced, we meet old ones and I assure you that you will grow fond of each of them.

During the reading you will surely make your theories, as I am too. Some will be right and some will be wrong.
I’d be here to tell you more about the book, but I don’t want to reveal any further. You will have to enjoy page by page of Harrow The Ninth.

I can only congratulate the author, Tamsyn Muir, who has created a magnificent world and the protagonists to whom it is inevitable not to become attached.

This book has kept me glued to the pages, if it were possible, I would have also taken some days off to be able to devote myself completely to reading Harrow The Ninth. The author writes in a magnetic way, but I believe that the winning weapon here is the originality of the story. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.

I can’t wait to read the final chapter, Alecto The Ninth, so I can happily say that this is the best trilogy I’ve ever read.