Harrow the Ninth

This is a hard one for me to rate, because honestly I spent a good chunk of this book confused and frustrated. This is by design as the author clearly wants you to be in the dark as these plot threads are gradually revealed and connected, but as a reader, asking me to push through more than half of this 20+ hour audiobook with only vague speculation about what's going on...it felt like a lot. I might have DNFed it if I didn't know others who had pushed through and assured me there was a payoff.

There was a payoff, and I'm glad I read it, and I will likely continue with the Locked Tomb series, but even at the end I had to head to the Wiki to make sure I grasped everything that happened here. If you loved the first one, then give this one a chance, but don't try to listen while multitasking and be prepared to endure the uncertainty.

Very obvious spoilers ahead for Gideon the Ninth and this book.

To go from the sort of obnoxious opening chapters of Gideon, where Gideon's sense of snark comes across as forced and obnoxious, to this book where you're begging for that signature snark again is really a feat. I put GtN aside at least two or threes times before it stuck for me, but when it did, that book hit hard.

Harrow the Ninth is not an easy book, by any stretch of the imagination. All the negative reviews decrying this book as a departure from the previous one and not as fun illustrate the point of the book.

This isn't a fun book, it's a book about loss and grief. It's about what we do when we're overwhelmed by grief and try to soldier on so we'll look strong instead of coping. There's some thematic overlap here with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind where Harrow is so overwhelmed with the death of Gideon so one of them could survive, and for her being the survivor, that she literally has a rival necromancer in Ianthe (both now Lyctors, sort of) do an experimental procedure to rewrite Harrow's mind and change their shared history so Gideon was never there. Instead, it was Ortus, the failed cavalier, who took her place.

Thusly, we see Harrow interacting with the remaining lyctors while carrying Gideon's longsword with her and haunted by “the body,” which is intended to be the body within the Locked Tomb she disturbed as a 10-year-old that led to the death of her family. While interacting with her fellow lyctors and ‘God,' a name named John, of all things, we see how Harrow is not considered a full lyctor because she didn't properly absorb her cavalier like the rest did.

... we know that she did, which was how she defeated Cytherea in the previous book, but in this book everything is different.

The book is split into two different narration styles. One in third, the other in second person. Yeah, that's right, a bulk of this book is in the dreaded second person. In part, because Harrow isn't telling her own story. She is being told her story.

A part of me thought “dear god, this is really going hard on this artificial memory and the allegory” because a solid 65% of this book is told like this. We don't even have glimpses of whatever the “real” is until about 60% and the final act of the book features things finally split between Harrow stuck in “the river,” a surreal part of the afterlife, while Gideon awakens and takes over Harrow's body.

While we go through this book knowing that Harrow is off, what we get a clear view of is how “God” and his lyctors work. They're dysfunctional, bitter and all hate each other, plus one named Ortus (no relation, really) is trying to kill Harrow. The mysteries unfold slowly and we spend a lot of time with the husk of Harrow knowing full well she's hurting so bad that she'd rather allow herself to be this husk of an undead immortal being than live with the guilt of knowing she lived and the only person who ever cared for her sacrificed herself to land in this position.

When Gideon “returns” it's impossible not to be excited. Think about that. I went from thinking this was the biggest piece of twee shit in the world to cheering for the return of Gideon in all her awkwardness.

By the time the book was over I ordered the hardcovers of both (I read them via library copies, more people should use the public libraries that are available to them) in a heartbeat.

An absolute 5-star book that fist fights you the entire way through. It is a masterful depiction of grief and the loathsome emptiness when one cannot cope. It gaslights you till it hurls reveal after jaw-dropping reveal in your face. Like Gideon, it's an absolute treasure to re-read. Unlike Gideon, this book is not nearly as clear cut, and that's a good thing. It deserves to be meditated on and re-read and discussed. The religious trauma written into it has it demanding shared worship of the story as a means of appreciation and understanding and I think that's fucking cool and awesome. This book does to the reader exactly what it means to and rips your heart out perfectly (again). Harrow is a phenomenal character and the narrator is positively fascinating.

Hoo boy. This was a ride. I felt very confused a lot of the time, but it all came together really well. There's so much going on, though, and it did take a little too long to come together, that it's only four stars to Gideon's five, but I'm still really enjoying these. I'm going to take a break before Nona, as this was very long.

Space Necromancers! I do love the overriding concept of Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb trilogy. This time we are reading from Harrowhark's point of view and things are confusing. There is quite a dramatic stylistic switch in this story compared to the first. This time we are in second person, which can be a bit jarring, but adds some interesting conceptual twists. Are we in fact viewing things as Gideon still, just through the mind of Harrow? Then there is the fact that Harrow doesn't seem to be all there. Apparently something went different with her ascent to Lictorhood?

The first two thirds of the book are very strange and jarring. They mostly seem to ignore the events of Gideon the Ninth. This uncomfortable revision of history is decidedly deliberate though. What we are getting is an extreme version of an unreliable narrator. As it is in second person this gives the odd sensation of you lying to yourself through the reading - a strangely uncomfortable and unsettling experience (and where I see quite a few reviewers take umbrage to the book). To me this fits the aesthetics perfectly though. Whilst I do miss Gideon's fantastic snark this does seem a logical and very Harrowhark place to end up.

We also get to sense a bit more of the wider universe this time. We get the impression that the necromantic overlords are not viewed altogether positively, and they have unleashed some other monstrosities on the universe through their magic.

Ultimately this is a strange, unsettling and frequently confusing read. However, somehow it all works perfectly. This book demands patience, but the payoff is spectacular.

Starting this book I was so utterly confused and now having finished it, it felt more like reading the second book in an anthology up until the very end. The almost 400 pages where confusing and took way to long to come to the conclusion. And even though I could guess what was happening I still found it to be confusing and fully not enjoyable for the first 75%, especially because I liked Harrow much less than I did Gideon, especially their ‘writing style'. 

The book was good though, and although it took very long for things to get off the ground there were definitely some good bit in between that were funny or a nice scene. By the end when I finally started figuring out what was going on it did start all coming together and I did end up enjoying it. 

However reading the epilogue makes me scared I am in for exactly the same bullshit in the third book so I am not sure if I will find it worth my time to start and read that, especially since I read fairly slowly. 

I seriously had no idea what was going on for most of it... but I liked it anyway. It's completely insane. Sometimes I thought the writing was a mess and other times I thought it was masterfully woven and purposefully obtuse like a Gene Wolfe novel. I still really don't know... but I am intrigued by the third book so I guess Muir is doing something right.

I did not love this one nearly as much as Gideon the Ninth. The first book is in my top books I read this year and this book gave me such a headache. I'll admit it was what the author intended and I believe she executed the book how she wanted to but I did not like it. And normally when something isn't for me but is still well done I'll give it a 4 but I was so confused through the majority of the book that I was seriously considering skimming to the end. It wasn't until 72% when I got an explanation and things were clear and happening that I enjoyed the book. I think the mystery should have been revealed a lot sooner and this book should have been shorter. That being said I will be reading the final book Alecto the Ninth because the last 28% was good.

4.5 stars. This book is truly not for the faint of heart. It was confusing, it was wild, it was bewildering - and yet, I had an absolute blast. I've never read anything quite like this series, simultaneously befuddling me at every turn but yet more engaging than most books I've read. If you enjoyed the first book, you would quite likely enjoy this one - but be warned that you'd still be confused as all heck for most of it.

If you already enjoyed the first book, there was probably just something about the writing or the story or the world-building that clicked for you. This series and Muir's writing is definitely not for everyone, but if it clicks for you, you probably would be hard pressed to find a more stellar example of what she does well. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the extremely unique voice in her narrative, a blend of almost grimdark fantasy with black humour all delivered in the tone of high-schoolers somehow.

I'm also the sort of reader who's pretty OK to just let the story go on even if I'm not completely understanding what's going on and trying to catch the main gist as I go along. This served me particularly well for this book. It's common for fantasy/sci-fi books to be pretty obscure for the first 20-30%, sometimes even up to 50%. But this book... this book read like a fever dream for a whopping 70% of the book before you get any kind of clarity on what on earth is happening. I can definitely see that not working for a lot of people, but I was just enjoying myself so much with the narrative voice despite not having a single clue what was going on. Also, be warned that a lot of this book uses the second-person narrative.

Behind it all, there's a really fascinating world and story that Muir is building here. It's just sometimes hard to have a good grip on what the world is actually all about because we see it through some very convoluted perspectives. Nevertheless though, I have always been pretty satisfied with how the stories conclude for both the first book and this one, there's just enough of a pay-off to make the fever dreams clearer and less of a hot mess, and just enough of a cliffhanger to make you wild for the next installment already.

Spoilery thoughts: I felt like what really pulled me through the first confusing 70% was how beautifully it was done that we always just almost touched Gideon but never did, and the way the narrative and Harrow and every other character always seemed to just dance around Gideon's name just made the ghost of her feel even more real despite the absence. When Gideon eventually did come back, I never realised how much I missed her narrative voice until just then.I probably missed the answers to some of these from the confusion of the ending but: Who the heck is Wake and why is she a Commander and why is she so involved with just about everyone in the First House? So was it also established that she was also the Sleeper? And why was the Saint of Duty trying to kill Harrow through the whole book? Who was Anastasia/Annabel? Did we find out who the Body in the Tomb was? Why did Augustine and Mercy go all that length to conceive Gideon?

I very certainly will continue this series.

Si tuviera que describir esta novela con una palabra, ser??a ???extra??a???. Al principio parece que es una cosa, despu??s parece que es otra y, al final, est??s dos tercios del libro sin saber qu?? est??s leyendo.

He estado a punto de abandonar el libro varias veces, pero me alegro de no haberlo hecho. Podr??a decirse que Muir juega con nosotros todo el tiempo. A veces mejor, a veces peor.

Al terminar la lectura me queda la sensaci??n de que es una genialidad, pero no puedo olvidar lo que ha costado llegar hasta el final.

Tamsyn Muir has a bright future ahead of her. Her writing is both approachable but also complex in ideas and plot. Maybe sometimes too complex. Too much time had passed for my old and forgetful brain to remember Book 1 so I had to re-read portions of Gideon and rely on fandom wikis to fully understand what was going on. So if you like your fantasy to be grungy rather elegiac she joins Joe Abercrombie as being my favorites, but you might want to wait until book 3 to power through them one after the other.

For a 16 hr book, this was 10 hrs to long. The first 12 hours could have been done in 1st or 3rd person in 2 hours and had a four (I really liked it) it five (I loved it) star rating. 

At one point Harrow find herself in the military almost entirely so the author can make a pun about baristas. The entire scene contributes nothing to the story. 

I am...very much still processing this! The bookstore employee told me he thought I'd like it when I picked it up, and I asked what his impression was. He said, “Well, for the first half, you're just going to be like, ‘What the fuck is happening??',” and he was almost correct, except it was more like the first two-thirds. I would describe this as a punishing read! But I'm aware it's intentionally so: Harrow the Ninth is like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind crossed with Memento, crossed with A Memory Called Empire. I cannot imagine a better representation of the chaos of someone frantically running from grief. And then Gideon reappears and I have never been more relieved to reencounter a fictional character. I need a break before reading Nona the Ninth, but damn does Muir swing for the fences.

Overall i enjoyed this book but the middle was tough. the first 20% was good and the Last 20% was amazing
CAWPILE SCOREC-6A-8W-7P-7I-7L-5E-7TOTAL-6.14/10CAWPILECharacters.Characters felt inconsistent and times but overall were just fine.AtmosphereThe Atmosphere was good it really drew me into what was happening and whereWritingWriting had a couple issues, mainly just words that didn't fit within the story. They pulled me out of the book everytimePlotThe Plot was great. starting off by talking about resurrection Beasts and the threat they pull and then switching to God is bad guy, and lied to us. i just wish the twist had been a little more than just the last bit of the bookIntrigueI loved the letters that Harrow wrote to herself after performing Memory modification but i wished they had more of an impact on the story, because they change very little about what actually happens. LogicGod or John felt very inconsistent. He refused to tell his Saint of Duty to stop killing Harrow, but stops Harrow from fighting back at every instance. The decisions made sometimes confused me. like why God/John acted afraid of Resurrection Beasts for 10,000 years just to test some loyalties. and the fact that Gideon is the son of a Lyctor and God/John. that really came out of nowhere. the logic of denying resurrection beasts their energy. and most of the actions taken by Harrow and Ianthe are true to their characterEnjoymentOverall i really enjoyed the beginning and the Ending of this book. the middle could've lost about half and been just fine. I probably won't reread it, but I'd recommend it to people.
I will be talking about it on Libromancy 05/02/2021 https://libromancy.podbean.com/

April 9th, 2023
Makes a lot more sense the second time round

December 9th, 2022:
From an enjoyment standpoint, the plot is poorly paced and confusing, but from an artistic standpoint, it makes perfect sense. The slow, disjointed feel of the first 60% or so makes the reader understand Harrow's dissociation. All of a sudden it makes sense when certain events that I shan't speak of occur and Harrow is jolted back into a version of sanity.
It's a rather violent book (not my usual taste) but that factor can be ignored when you focus on the genius of everything else.