Harrow the Ninth

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.

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.

DNF, przekartkowałom do końca. Ale memuszki i fanarty na tumblrze bardzo spoko.

I am only slightly less confused than the first read.

I really need to read these books physically.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

second read five stars i fucking love this book, man. love how you can really empathise with a lobotomised harrow because it feels like you, too, have been lobotomised by muir right when you started this. the ballsy choice to use a SECOND PERSON NARRATOR is [chefs kiss]. it makes this book once again different than anything else i???ve ever read. muir is so dedicated to her story that she doesn???t let up until she has to which is always the right moment (you realise in retrospect and upon reread). i love that she never goes easy on you. also. pain. pain!!!! oh harrow. my necromancing genius insane child. everything she does and does to herself is just so [unable to specify without spoiling so you???ll just have to believe me]. she???s simply a soup-plot inventing legend. girlie go some sleep. gotta go scour the reddit now before STARTING NONA!!!first read five stars what the FUCK did i just read

I love angst!!!! “None house with left grief” destroyed me. Somewhat more confusing than Gideon but still unputdownable.

500 pages too long this book literally could have been an email

In the end it was an enjoyable bit space fantasy. It was a bit confusing at times and they made it a slog a few times. But once it turned the corner and explained itself, yeah good stuff.

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/

Ah what the hell... have your 4 stars!

Not exactly sure what's going on in this little space odyssey. Not exactly sure I care. It's just great fun. Also, if you are going to choose a bodily substance to have complete mastery over, go with bone, not fat.

I could write essays about how much I love this book. Gideon and Nona are both outstanding books, but Harrow changed me as a person. It's one of the best books I've ever read. I've never felt the things I felt when I finished it for the first time. Muir reminded me of what literature can do and why queer stories matter. Easily in my top five books of all time. 

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.

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.)

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.

Didn't grab me the way the first one did.

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!'?

As the novel progresses, determining what is real and what isn???t becomes very important indeed. It???s not only about whether or not Harrow???s story is true, or if the unknown narrator???s story is true; it???s also about not knowing if the people one is supposed to trust wholeheartedly are actually telling the truth.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-JE

This book was a mess. I finished Gideon the Ninth and went straight into Harrow excited to read more. Then I saw it's in second person and got very worried because I very much dislike second person writing; it's boring, in my modest opinion. Funnily enough I didn't mind it at all.What I did mind (read: hate) was everything else. Erasing Gideon for the most predictable reason is by far the worst decision ever. The confusing, boring, aimless plot is on par.The ending came out of nowhere and included a literal “teleports behind ‘Nothing personnel kid' “ meme. I hated this book. The extra star is for the one twist that I didn't predict which amounted to a “hm, that's cool” reaction from me. Can't wait for [b:Alecto the Ninth 39325106 Alecto the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #3) Tamsyn Muir https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 60943284] to be written in future tense and for 3/4 of it pretend like nothing from the first two existed.