Harrow the Ninth

The first 2/3rds of the book felt like such a betrayal of the first book's amazingness that I was getting legitimately upset. I thought “how could such a great story by such a captivating writer go this wrong?!” It was confusing and weird and not even that interesting.
But SOMEHOW it was all worth it in the end, and once finished, I considered it a total triumph, except possibly that it leaned pretty hard towards being too much of a mind-f√¢£.
Still, I feel like making me slog through 14 hours (I'm guessing ~350 pages) of subtle torment is a little too unforgivable to allow a 5-star rating.

Wel, dat was raar. Dit boek is onmogelijk te begrijpen zonder het eerste gelezen te hebben. En zelf mét het eerste gelezen te hebben is het kantjeboord.

Het is een vervolg, maar voor 80% van de tijd weet het hoofdpersonage niet wat er in het eerste deel gebeurd is. Of beter, is er iets totaal anders gebeurd. Zoals in, hoofdpersonage twee bestáát gewoon niet meer.

Flashbacks (of zijn het wel flashbacks?) vertellen een totaal ander verhaal dan het eerste boek, met bijna maar niet helemaal dezelfde personages.

Op het einde wordt alles deels duidelijk en deels nog meer onduidelijk, en ik kijk enorm hard uit naar dat derde en laatste deel.

Oh, en misschien nog één zaak. Ja, in dit boek (en het vorige) zijn er vrouwelijke personages die op vrouwelijke personages verliefd worden. In dit boek zijn er op een bepaald moment zelfs –gasp!– mannen die kussen. Het is ongetwijfeld een teken van de tijd dat ik daar geen moment van wakker lag, of er zelfs maar een zaak van maakte tijdens het lezen.

In zoverre dat de hoofdpersonages van This is How You Lose the Time War een biologisch geslacht of gender hadden, ging het ook over twee vrouwen. En ook daar kon het mij gestolen worden. Twee mensen worden verliefd op elkaar, punt uit. Man, vrouw, geen van beide, allebei, mens, post-mens, androïde, who the fuck cares?

Wel, véél mensen blijkbaar, als ik reviews lees. “Gideon the Ninth is about lesbian necromancers in space. Obviously, it's perfect” is de titel van een review in Vox. “Lesbian Necromancers in Space Will Break Your Heart” is de titel van een review bij Gizmodo. Ben ik nu écht de enige die dat ondertussen ('t is 2021 hé jongens) even belachelijk vindt als wanneer men zou zeggen “Sneeuwwitje: hetero cis man kust hetero cis vrouw!'?

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Harrow the Ninth

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.

I guess I would say take this for what it is... I am openly admitting that maybe I am forgetting a hell of a lot about Gideon the Ninth??

For starters, I have this weird engrained dislike for the use of the word “you” from teachers trying so hard to get us to keep the word out of essays that this really turned me off. Not to mention that in this 506 page book (my hardcover) she uses “you” probably one million times. I called immediately what it was being used for—in a weird, in the perspective of, but not of, Gideon speaking... I hated it.
Now I don't remember if it was mentioned in Gideon the decision to remove her memory of her, but by my reckoning, Gideon was not mentioned for 381 pages. I totally see what Muir was going for but I found that it really, really, REALLY did not work for me.
I distinctly remember realizing at page 60, 100, 150, that I genuinely had absolutely no idea what was going on. This could have been a mixture of me not remember what happened in Gideon, but I also have to imagine that this was also a decent amount of poor writing too, right? Not that plot was a strong point in Gideon the Ninth, but this almost 400 page lead-up to the “twist” just completely erased any comprehensiveness in the story for me. Also I really enjoyed the murder mystery-y feel to Gideon the Ninth and I feel like this was the author trying to continue on with the mystery feel. For me it was a flop.

I would say pages 1-400 were a 2* to maybe a 2.5. Then the climax was a bit more understandable and cool, maybe a 3-3.5 ending. Really not sure at this point if I'll read Alecto the Ninth...

After the excellent Gideon the Ninth, this is continuing to prove to be a great trilogy. Granted, this second part unfolds in an, at times, frustratingly non-linear and opaque manner, but this is intentional, as becomes clear later on. Once all of the threads begin to coalesce, the story moves at a blistering pace. Can't wait for the final book!

Executive Summary: Much like [b:Gideon the Ninth 42036538 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) Tamsyn Muir https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538.SY75.jpg 60943229] this book started very slow for me and got better as it went along, however I found it a lot slower and less enjoyable overall. I'm not sure if I'll continue on to the third book or not. 2.5 rounded up for a decent ending and great narration.Audiobook: I initially borrowed [b:Gideon the Ninth 42036538 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) Tamsyn Muir https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538.SY75.jpg 60943229] from the library and ended up enjoying it enough to pick up the audio mid-read from a daily deal. Moira Quick was so good it was a no brainer that I'd do the audio for this one. She once again delivers a great listen, and was one of the bright spots of the early going when things were so slow. If I do continue on in the series it will definitely be in audio.Full ReviewIt's hard to review this book without first talking a bit about the last one (something I apparently didn't do at the time I read it earlier this year and have since remedied).When I first heard about [b:Gideon the Ninth 42036538 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) Tamsyn Muir https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538.SY75.jpg 60943229] the tagline I heard over and over was “Lesbian Neuromancers in space”. And while that was true, I felt it did the book a disservice by making it sound like a romanctic fantasy book.For me what I loved about that book was the sort of escape room/haunted house mystery and the snark of Gideon herself.This book tried to recapture the sort of mystery aspect of the first book, but I didn't feel like the execution was nearly as good. Instead it seemed to just sort of run in place for a really long time.I had some suspicions about what was going on fairly early and kept waiting for them to be confirmed or proven wrong. And waiting. And waiting.Eventually we got to the reveal and the last few chapters of this book were thouroughly enjoyable in the same vein as second half or so the first book. However it took far too long to get there for me.I'm not sure if I simply just don't find Harrow as entertaining as I did Gideon or if this book was badly in need of some editing. Probably a bit of both.At this point I'm not sure if I'll continue on to the final book. I probably will since I think there is just 1 book left, but I hope the pacing for that book is better. I may wait for some others to read and review it so I can pick their brain a bit on it.

This book is one of the most unique, challenging books I've ever read. There is really nothing like it. People said it was confusing and it absolutely is the most confusing thing I've ever laid eyes on. About 70% in, things start making sense and it does put a lot of it into context. The last third is very good. However, there are little things about Muir's writing that just kinda grind on me.

Firstly is the way she uses names. Every other line switches names and it's highly unnatural and takes me out of it every time. The same character will refer to the same person as John, God, Teacher, Emperor, and King Undying in the same chapter in their own head or in dialogue with no rhyme or reason as to when or why. This gets even worse with the House representatives, because sometimes someone will refer to them by their first name, sometimes by their last name, and then sometimes by their house number, again with no reason. It's not that I can't figure out who they're referring to, it's that I shouldn't have to, and I don't believe people do this. You might call someone a different name, but you won't make a game out of changing it every time.
(Okay, that bothers me more than it should. I know)

Otherwise, my other problem is that the writing trends into melodrama during big moments and a little bit less would go further for me, personally. I also think that, while the reveals were very good, there is definitely a way to have made this story have the same reveals and be like 25% less confusing than it was. At a certain point, you are getting off on making things confusing, and I think we passed that point in this book.

Also this book was funnier than Gideon the Ninth but without trying to be as funny (or seeming to), so that was a win.

Pretty excited to read Nona the Ninth, after a break

Update 09/22/23: y'all I could reread this book 100 times and still learn something new every time. My jaw was on the floor for the entire last chunk of this book. Tamsyn muir is a genius.

One of the absolute best books I've read this year.

In this follow up, from the beginning you really have no idea what's going on. You're following Harrow's point of view, with time jumps back from the past to the present, but the past isn't lining up with everything we read in Gideon the Ninth. Basically the first 70% is Harrow trying to figure out what is going on. Since Harrow doesn't know, it doesn't ever feel frustrating that the reader doesn't know because you're figuring it out with harrow. When you DO start figuring out what's going on, it's just back to back reveals with some of the most heart shattering lines. I started putting tabs in because I just knew I needed to come back to those moments. This book is an absolute masterpiece. The way Muir was able to keep me interested even though I didn't know what was happening is a masterful feat, but to also make me feel so invested in these characters outs her in the top of new favorite authors. Read this series.

What the hell was that?
I definitely did not expect my main question about Gideon to have this answer.
An I definitely don't get something about the Epilogue.
And it's such a bummer that Alecto is still unpublished and who knows when (if?) it will be.
I do hope that Nona is directly related to all this mess, maybe even making it a bit messier, but at this point, who cares.

I loved this book so much. What a fantastic sequel! There's a lot that set up in this novel and the previous one and the author delivers satisfying and unpredictable pay offs to it all. I think my mouth was hanging open nonstop from chapter 40 all the way to the epilogue just from the amount of reveals and twists! I cannot wait to read the next installment in the series! One flesh, One end indeed!

This book is bonkers, but in some really good ways. As I was warned, a large chunk of the book is confusing and doesn't line up with events that happened in Gideon. Harrow does say several times that she is insane. Readers should take her at her word. In the latter part of the book, things become clear with payoffs for the things that don't make sense. In addition to continuing the overarching plot started in Gideon, Harrow is a poignant explanation of mental illness and grief. Some questions left hanging in Gideon are answered and even more are raised.  Overall I thought it very good and look forward to continuing with Nona. 

Harrow is a walking trauma ... an unreliable narrator? Yeah
But in this case so utterly unreliable that she alters our memories of what came before, and that by quite alot—which, not for nothing, is a BIG swing on Muir's part, and one that she pulls off, not gracefully, but with devastating brute force. And also somewhat hallerious in my opinion.

The book's universe revolves around a galactic empire ruled by a god-like emperor and eight noble houses.  After ten thousand years of uninterrupted rule, the eight Lyctors, representatives from each house with demigod powers who serve directly the emperor, are depleted.  There are only three left, and so a new group was educated to take their place.  In the first book, only two of the eight representatives survived to achieve the status of a Lyctor: Ianthe and Harrow.  They join the emperor and the surviving three Lyctors on an isolated space station.  At first, they hide from the nigh unkillable Resurrection Beast, and later they prepare to fight it.

So to the more detailed or serious part of this rewiev. (That I feel will be complicated and confusing to read) The narriation style, it is written from both a third and secound pov, which is honestly confusing. Like super confusing. And to make it even worse the ending has some first pov aswell. Like ye, that is confusion. Like I mean it makes sence it is writen like this when thinking back. Like it is all written from Gidion pov and at first she sits there like a silent creature. But after awhile she gets more presence and starts to talk more just to Harrow.

There is also the still everlasting thing taht the author somewhat feels like he is trying to scram and push too much into that are supose to be vauge but at times just gets confson. Like it is already confusing enough with all the magic and tecnology and having to think of that and undertsnad it. Just the flashbacks can at times make it even more confusing.
I mean dont get me wrong I do LOVE this book. Like it is so close to beig a 5 star. Just not totally yet, as this narriator thing did bug my brain at times.

But the stroy, OMG how I just love the overall story of this book so much. And the cara thers are even better. And the idea, like how can it even be thought. Like it is just so good and I feel kinda all weird and somehwt empty now after having read it. So yes, it is awsome.

Second Read: 3.5 Stars (leaning toward four)

I think my first read through review was fair. The book has a lot of STUFF you have to notice or put together and it can be really chaotic. But rereading it was super enjoyable since now that I knew what was going to happen I could understand all the mega confusing stuff from before and actually see a lot of the puzzle pieces. I still think the flashback/dream sequences were pretty uninteresting and its a lot of lore dump but it was far better than my first read through.






Middle book syndrome is omega real.

** SPOILER ALERT **




I have to give this book props though. The use of perspectives in this book was super interesting and fun to piece together. The issue was that it felt like nothing was happening during the first 70% of the book. All I got were tidbits hinting at the bigger picture and a whole lot of exposition about characters I just wasn't super invested in and I didn't think mattered. Same thing with the smaller “present” plot. The threat of the Resurrection Beasts felt super irrelevant (it basically was) and it just filled up space while Harrow was getting confused by her memories. I kind of felt like I got the point about her being an unreliable narrator and her needing Gideon after the first few references. However, the way it was written was excellent and it made me bump its rating up a ton though it required a ton of attention. I literally had to read it all in one sitting because I wanted to keep it straight in my head.

Side note: it was super hard to get into the flashback memories since they felt like they were there to keep sticking the same point.

But once the climax started to hit, the finally started to breathe. It was weird. I literally felt like the book was dammed up until Gideon finally surfaced. After that the book had the same feel as the first book in the series and it clicked into that familiar spot. The climax itself was really overwhelming though. There were so many weird twists with Gideon and her lineage along with all the reveals about the Lcytors, God, and the Blood of Eden were just like “ok. got it. alright I guess” etc. It took multiple reads for me to understand the actual lore there. Also I was so annoyed by the weird immersion breaking humor there. The climax in the River with Harrow was also weird and it felt like it just jumped the shark there.

I kind of just attribute a lot of it to middle book syndrome but I do end up comparing it to The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. Both of these books had this huge buildup about a mystery and not too much happening. However, Sanderson's execution made that all pay off well and it was super gripping. This one just felt less well executed.

Gave up 21% of the way in the 1st time around as well as the 2nd.

Just too disjointed on the story, what was present, past, alternate reality, real, not real. I can't even tell if 'now' has even changed locations or if this is a 1-scene story; it all seems to occur in a recovery room.

What's with the eyes???

Daaaaaaang! I spent the majority of this book not knowing what was going on - that's the point - and loving it. The reveal(s) were so well done with such an interesting structure. I was happy to see certain disaster lesbian again if for nothing else the incredible necromantic “gall on gall action” joke.

The problem with reading books right when they come out is that you have to wait a long time for the next one.

Harrow the Ninth is probably the single most mindbending book that I've ever read. From start to finish I felt like I was being gaslit, and that Tamsyn Muir was laughing at me as I second guessed myself into a gibbering mess on the floor. Needless to say, I adored this book.

There's a few quirks straight off the bat that I had heard people complain about before I'd even finished Gideon, so I went in slightly apprehensive. Especially considering the second person perspective that is so incredibly divisive.

I'd like to say that these complaints are warranted, and that people have good reason to feel this way. And to a certain extent they do. If you just hate second person, and think it can never be done well, you'll hate this, but if I'm being honest, anyone who complained about the second person after finishing the book missed the point. The book fundamentally doesn't work without the existence of the second person.

The other main complaint I've seen is that people didn't like the fact that there was a retelling of the events in the first book, but this is an incredibly unfair assessment of those chapters if I'm being honest, and the complaint rings hollow to me after I've finished the book, since it comes across as though the people raising this complaint didn't finish the book.

The pacing complaint that I've seen is a totally valid one, though I personally liked the pacing, even if the book is very slow at points. That's just the style of story that I enjoy, so this one clicked with me.

The characters in this book are stellar, much like they were in Gideon, each one making a splash within a few pages of their introduction. This book is also benefitted by having a much smaller cast than the previous entry, allowing the other characters to absolutely shine off the page. Looking back at it, Gideon definitely suffered to a small extent from character bloat (despite my enjoyment of those characters) and definitely could have used a bit more time with some of them. This is mitigated in both this book and Nona, as now we've seen more of a lot of those characters, so Gideon is very much the prologue of the series that serves as setup.

The Emperor in particular is an absolute delight, acting like that fun uncle that you only used to see at family events, except you're seeing him in a really important position of power, and his chaotic inner gremlin is telling him to fuck around and have fun, but his sensible side (and sensible friends) are steering him narrowly past that path. This creates a lot of really engaging scenes with him, where the fun part is dropped, and he just gets sad, and you see the pain he's been through, paying off setup from early on in GtN.

Then there's Harrow. Harrow had big shoes to fill for me, coming off the back of Gideon, who is now firmly squared away as one of my favourite protagonists in literature. And you know what? She didn't fill them completely. But she was damn close. Harrow in any other series would be the best PoV that you'd get, but here she just has some damn good competition. The fact that Tamsyn was able to craft two distinctly phenomenal protagonists is something worthy of praise on it's own, so I'm not even remotely disappointed by Harrow not living up to the Himbo in chief. She's still an S-tier Protagonist in my opinion.

And then there's the prose. The prose is once again phenomenal in this book, Tamsyn going all out to show off her skills as an author. I was challenged multiple times throughout this book with words that I had never even realized needed defining, but here she is, pulling out the most obscure terms she can, and I love it.

All in all, a hearty recommendation from me, I adore this book. Tamsyn Muir is one of the best modern SFF authors in the game, and I'm so excited to finish the series.

Once again, I'm not really sure I knew what I was reading. Not that I didn't enjoy it, I just often didn't really have a clue what was going on. The use of second-person narrative was extra weird - pulling you into the story, making you the protagonist when you (I) were floundering in the strange plot. But yet again, as it ended, I wanted more. Bring on Nona...

I am not entirely sure WTAF I just read, but whatever it was, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Why does 2022 have to be so far away?

(Side note: I'm guessing these books will eventually age like milk, given the meme references that are often almost completely nonsensical in context, but I don't even care because they're so much fun right now.)