Our favourite necromancer has risen to the ranks of the most powerful, who are rather Machiavellian but disconcertingly human. In the process though, she has lost her marbles, and we are left without any certainty as to what the hell is going on, and doubts undermine our memory of the first book. Which is mostly bearable because it eventually unravels, only to be frustrated by an unwelcome dumping of unresolved head-scratchers which demands some re-reading. More serious than the first book, without the swagger.
menuda pasada... mira que se me hacen difíciles de leer porque lo paso mal no entendiendo cosas, pero a veces hay que dejarse llevar, i guess. creo que voy a esperar antes de leerme nona! pa no quemarme tampoco. pero tengo ganitas!
If you couldn't quite follow the events in Gideon the Ninth and found the book confusing, this one is definitely not for you.
Harrow the Ninth continues the Locked Tomb series where Gideon the Ninth left off. It is a complete mindfuck however (excuse my language) and with every page I was delightedly wondering "ok, what unexpected event or information will come next?"
If you liked the first one, this continuation will make you like the series even more.
I never expected a book to successfully gaslight me and I would have expected even less that I would enjoy that.
This book manages not only to describe someones descent into madness from intense grief but it makes you feel it yourself. It fractured so many things you thought you knew from the previous book that you constantly doubt your own memory of those past event, but brings everything together towards the end only to leave you with questions again.
It is also repeatedly hilarious and features one of the best dad jokes of all time.
This series does not give up its secrets easily. It holds them closely and tightly like a squirrel with its nuts. I was left at the end of the last book with a lot of questions, and really pressing plot developments that I needed answers to, and “Harrow the Ninth“ wasn’t going to give them to me lightly.
The book does its best from the get-go to upend your sense of reality, attacking your memories of what exactly happened in the first book. It does this both in story content - it directly contradicts events as you remember them from book one - but also in the narration. style. I can’t say that I have ever read another book that spends this much time in the second person. It took me quite a while to get used to it, as I typically despise second person, but once I did it …
This series does not give up its secrets easily. It holds them closely and tightly like a squirrel with its nuts. I was left at the end of the last book with a lot of questions, and really pressing plot developments that I needed answers to, and “Harrow the Ninth“ wasn’t going to give them to me lightly.
The book does its best from the get-go to upend your sense of reality, attacking your memories of what exactly happened in the first book. It does this both in story content - it directly contradicts events as you remember them from book one - but also in the narration. style. I can’t say that I have ever read another book that spends this much time in the second person. It took me quite a while to get used to it, as I typically despise second person, but once I did it won me over. It’s use emphasized the tone, and set up some surprising reveals in the last act.
I don’t want to say too much aside from the fact that all of the strangeness and confusion is worth it for those big reveals, and I recommend sticking with the book through it. It is worth the ride.
The story follows Harrow in both the present and past, with the past reliving events from the first book from a different angle and with those big inconsistencies, while the present focuses on her experiences with the Emperor and the other Lictors, as she learns more about the truth of the state of the empire, and her role in it.
The book is full of interesting world building, conflicting personalities, mysteries, and occasional flashes of action and violence that are thoroughly satisfying to read.
I personally would not say that I like this one better than the first, because I missed some of the characters I liked from that first book, but this is very easily a worthy successor that does very interesting things with its narration, and it is a strong recommendation from me.
I must say that I didn’t love this one as much as I loved Gideon, it was a crazy mess of different timelines, weird perspectives and false memories. There were pieces I felt I understood where it was going at least and others I had no idea what their meaning was at all.
It did come together in the end which was cool and did leave even more questions for the future. Though I’m not sure I love where it’s going? I liked the low scale necromancy a lot more than the multi-world scale it seems to be taking off into, but I will see how the next book goes.
Overall I did enjoy it, despite it trying a little too hard to obscure its own story. It was certainly not an easy read but it took a lot of skill to make a book this confusing and yet …
4/5
I must say that I didn’t love this one as much as I loved Gideon, it was a crazy mess of different timelines, weird perspectives and false memories. There were pieces I felt I understood where it was going at least and others I had no idea what their meaning was at all.
It did come together in the end which was cool and did leave even more questions for the future. Though I’m not sure I love where it’s going? I liked the low scale necromancy a lot more than the multi-world scale it seems to be taking off into, but I will see how the next book goes.
Overall I did enjoy it, despite it trying a little too hard to obscure its own story. It was certainly not an easy read but it took a lot of skill to make a book this confusing and yet still super enjoyable.
That was an incredibly complex book to read. Almost too complex to enjoy. The narrative was really hard to understand and started only to make sense in the last quarter. Only my curiosity made me finish it.
That was an incredibly complex book to read. Almost too complex to enjoy. The narrative was really hard to understand and started only to make sense in the last quarter. Only my curiosity made me finish it.
Amazing. During my second read through I started to question if I had ever read this book once. There's so much going on here that multiple reads is a must.
Everyone opens up Harrow the Ninth after having read Gideon the Ninth and fallen in love with Gideon's character. "Is she okay?" is the only question I wanted to see answered. Does Harrow the Ninth deliver?
No. Gideon is not mentioned for the majority of the book. But it's worse than that. We're actively getting flashbacks to Gideon the Ninth's plot with Gideon erased from it! Fantastic.
The world-building is going strong, there's lot's of drama, bloody action, twists and betrayals. I'm still on board with the series. Every decision on the writer's part is surprising and fun. This book was a typical 2nd book and a bit of a filler. Is the story going anywhere? Probably yes, but I also don't really care. I'm here for lewd necromancers in space, and I don't think this series will run out of those.
PS: Haha, some great quotes:
At this, there …
Everyone opens up Harrow the Ninth after having read Gideon the Ninth and fallen in love with Gideon's character. "Is she okay?" is the only question I wanted to see answered. Does Harrow the Ninth deliver?
No. Gideon is not mentioned for the majority of the book. But it's worse than that. We're actively getting flashbacks to Gideon the Ninth's plot with Gideon erased from it! Fantastic.
The world-building is going strong, there's lot's of drama, bloody action, twists and betrayals. I'm still on board with the series. Every decision on the writer's part is surprising and fun. This book was a typical 2nd book and a bit of a filler. Is the story going anywhere? Probably yes, but I also don't really care. I'm here for lewd necromancers in space, and I don't think this series will run out of those.
PS: Haha, some great quotes:
At this, there was a fractional relaxing of Mercymorn's frowzled brow: not relief, but the germination of the seed of relief.
Old people should be shot.
It was not the way of the Ninth House to pray with such wilful credulousness; yet you prayed all the while knowing Ianthe's facility for tergiversation would have given the whole universe pause.
So I'm shut in here—walled in, really— to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief.
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.
I managed to read 16% of this book because I’m deeply masochistic. I managed to stop reading this book because I realized that I love myself I’m too old to struggle through obtuse writing, waiting for an actual plot to kick in.
I managed to read 16% of this book because I’m deeply masochistic. I managed to stop reading this book because I realized that I love myself I’m too old to struggle through obtuse writing, waiting for an actual plot to kick in.
To me, this book feels like Muir wrote 3 books in-between Gideon and this, that's how much more confident this one's structure and writing feels. Whereas Gideon felt experimental and somewhat messy (in the most generous reading of those words possible), requiring me to commit more effort than I'm used to to pull me through it at times, this one had me hooked from the start, excellently paced, spinning threads that felt convoluted without requiring me to re-read fragments to make sure I'd understood what had just happened, and with a explosive last third or so that made me stay up at night reading through to the end. Loved it and can't wait to see where the series goes next.
