Nona the Ninth

To say it's difficult to nail down exactly what a Locked Tomb book actually is would be an understatement.

For a series that I actively avoided, it's become something I very much enjoy. Being an artist and answering to yourself in the face of a passionate fanbase is bold. Gideon the Ninth was a fun book that had a lot going on for it and nobody would have blamed Muir for merely recreating it with the same cast of characters and continuing on with a linear story. Instead, Harrow the Ninth happened, which veered so far off course that you were either there for the ride or ejected, dejected that someone who wrote one of your favorite books isn't playing the greatest hits.

Nona is another very different book.

I'm gonna write stuff and it'll potentially be spoilers.

After the ending of Harrow, there were expectations of what we were getting. We were getting Harrowhawk coming to her senses, Gideon was indeed going to play a part, now we know more about Lyctors and John Gaius's bonkers empire. Hell, we've fought resurrection beasts and heralds. We've got our world-building down pat, but then again, who the hell is Blood of Eden that Camilla is hanging out with?

It turns out, none of this is very easy and this series explores love, trauma and the impact both have on individuals, groups and the greater community. Nona is, in a lot of ways, a shell. Nona is someone we care deeply about and want to be doing cool, kickass things, but in the wake of nonstop trauma, Nona is also Nona. There are locals kids she hangs out with, she's not very smart but she's a teacher's assistant to keep her busy and she's got her found family of Camilla and Palamedes sharing a body and Pyrrha Dve holding things down for everyone. They're in a bombed-out city on the verge of awful things and there are a lot of potentially familiar faces being referred to by different names.

Witnessing this through Nona's eyes is something that would only work via prose, as readers are familiar with a lot of the characters. Nona is, after all, only six-months-old in a nineteen-year-old body. It's complicated. This means even when we're familiar with characters, like Gideon, either Gideon has massively changed by all the events she's suffered through, or Nona feels intimidated by Gideon and sees her as a cold, impassive person, which is in contrast to how Harrow would see Gideon.

The biblical tract-style chapters of John's origin story punctuate all of this. These chapters break up the narrative while providing valuable context how this all began. We get to see how John was working on a cryo project as a part of the greater FTL escape plan to get as many people as possible off of Earth. Somewhere along the way, John discovers he's able to reanimate dead bodies, amasses a literal death cult, becomes a global figure that's helping keep a powerful president looking like he's alive and starts committing atrocities with a downright laissez-faire attitude. Somehow, this results in John and his cohort getting access to a suitcase nuke, John discovering the wealthy were planning to abscond while leaving 99% of humanity behind and that old softie John ends up starting an end-game style nuclear war, his powers reaching an apex where he single-handedly reaches out and slaughters every last person he can reach.

These chapters, especially in the context of where this book sits in the series where the emperor was slain, Gideon returned in Harrowhawk's body to fight, we discover Gideon's parentage and all of this other stuff, helps to frame exactly what this series is and who these people are. So much of what we experienced prior in the series was dream-like, odd and detached. Nona's reality, in contrast, is grounded and post-apocalyptic. Nona is living in the wake of the destruction, with the battered remains of the people who mattered to her. So, is Nona an awakening from a fairy tale, or a reprieve from the surreal reality of the nine houses, the river, the resurrection beasts and the heralds?

... does it even matter?

You are always in for a wild ride with Tamsyn Muir and the third entry into her Locked Tomb series is no exception. Each of the books in this series have been utterly distinct and different in their writing techniques and styles, yet also utterly and unambiguously Tamsin Muir. Gideon gave us a gothic haunted house/murder mystery full of snark, Harrow gave us second person space opera with an unreliable narrator. Nona goes full on post apocalyptic dystopia with a childish sunny disposition. The way that the inherent contradictions somehow enhance the overall story arc is nothing short of glorious. I am left in awe of Muir's writing abilities.

Thats not to say that these are easy reads. These are dense, complex and confusing books, layered with hints and clever cross references, obscured behind their different narrators personalities and flaws. Even placing them next to each other in the overall series timeline is challenging at times.

In Nona we do get some nice world building, linking back to the early rise of John Gaius. We return to some familiar characters in Camilla and Palamedes, even if they are presented in a new way. We get Corona from a different perspective. We get to see Gideon as others see her. And we are confronted with the mystery of who is Nona. All this against the strangely gentle background of a school teaching in a city undergoing lockdown in some dystopian post-apocalyptic planet.

The Locked Tomb is probably the most clever, dense and insane current speculative fiction series out there. I cannot wait for the conclusion in Alecto!

I wasn't ready for that to end.