Every so often you read a book that boggles your mind so thoroughly that you feel completely and wholly inadequate trying to express your thoughts as a reviewer. Harrow the Ninth is such a book.
I loved Gideon the Ninth when I read it last year, and it’s killer ending left me anxious to read Harrow (for reasons that I suspect are obvious if you’ve read Gideon, and if you haven’t… read on at your own risk). But part of me was worried the sequel would live up to my inflated expectations.
It did. It really really really did.
If it wasn’t clear from Gideon, Harrow confirms that Tamsyn Muir is a writer who excels at experimenting with structure. The story follows a nonlinear timeline; the one fixed point is a countdown to the Emperor’s murder, which we’re informed of in the very first line of the prologue. We also experience Harrow’s story in second-person narration, which Muir pulls off to spectacular effect in a way that rivals N.K. Jemisin’s use of the second-person in her Broken Earth series.
Then you went under to make war on Hell.
Hell spat you back out. Fair enough.
Add to that a serious case of amnesia, extended dream sequences, and an extravagant dinner party at the ends of the universe while a planet-devouring nightmare approaches, and you’ll start to realize just how bizarrely delightful this story is.
My one minor nitpick is that, as with Gideon, there’s a brief period in the middle of the book where it feels like there’s no direction to the plot. We don’t know how the immediate events move the plot forward or where the plot needs to go. However, the key difference is that we know there is a metaphorical axe hanging over our characters’ heads from page one: the emperor will be murdered. There’s also a lingering sense of “wtf is going on” that perfectly complements Harrow’s delicate mental state after the end of Gideon.
You were only half a Lyctor, and half a Lyctor was worse than not a Lyctor at all.
For anyone who was hungry for more worldbuilding in the first book, I suspect you’re going to be very happy readers. And while the humor is significantly toned down from book one, there are still some memorable moments… including what is quite possibly the best dad joke of all time.
Harrow the Ninth launched The Locked Tomb series into one of my favorites ever. This book is going to be talked about. A lot. And it will be deserved. I’m frankly amazed that this is a debut trilogy and cannot wait to get my hands on Alecto the Ninth.
I received an ARC of this book from Tor.com Publishing in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Disagree, the book was a big letdown from Gideon. What a mess narratively. What is worse is that the whole backwards structure of the book doesn’t seem to serve any relevant function except make the book more confusing. Nor does the ending make much sense on its own, except as a lead-in to the next book.
I think that Harrow has the potential to be a polarizing book, much like Gideon was. The difference here being that it’s polarizing for people who already enjoyed book 1 enough to continue the series.
Agree to disagree about the structure not being relevant, and I thought the confusion was a feature rather than a bug 🙂