Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Series Book 2)

I did not know it was possible to love the Locked Tomb series any more than I already did after Gideon the Ninth, but here we are! This book does a fantastic job of making you think you possibly had a stroke while reading the 1st one. We have flashbacks that are not any where close to the 1st book, characters are mysteriously missing, and Harrow's memory is completely shot. But then we find out we have the world's #1 most unreliable narrator in Harrow! And the pieces all fall into place, what happened and what is happening. I will warn that the book can be confusing due to this and we jump around timelines a bit but just keep reading - it will all make sense. This book of course does not have the same tone as the first, but that was expected for me - Gideon and Harrow could not be more different. This book really solidifies our knowledge about the Emperor, what the Lyctor's actually do for him, and what/who Blood of Eden is/are. The additional story at the end "As Yet Unsent" really helped fill in missing pieces about BoE as well. I am so excited to read Nona and see where this story goes. The plot is utterly massive (love it, obsessed) and all the characters are well fleshed out (even the baddies). I am obsessed with this world, I love it. It's so original, I've never read a series like this before. I will definitely be re-reading and then will be massively depressed until the 4th book is released!

Harrow was probably my least favorite character in Gideon the Ninth. So, I worried about a book solely based on a character who mostly acted like the foil for Gideon, but once wrapped my head around what the book was I liked it quite a bit. First the parts that might bug people. The books feel wildly different. The first book was basically a murder mystery book with space wizards. This book is a mystery, but more like Memento. A good story is made up of a main character who needs to go through some sort of personal transformation. The journey there is just how they navigate and address the things that help or hinder them. So, most of the world around the main character is more 2 dimensional. Like Memento you are drip fed things in portions of portions, but in Memento the main character is actively playing a part because he's trying to get to a known goal and the memory loss itself is a supporting character of sorts that he has to address. In doing so he goes through that transformation. Harrow is the exact opposite. She basically already went through the transformational journey, and spends most of the book being passively pulled back to that state with bits of the plan she already made being explained in the moment they are needed. What's even weirder is that it's not like her transformation comes through struggle. It's more like a child who is a blank slate growing into their personality, but one that is already predetermined. Needless to say, the book can feel very disjointed and like a novella that got stretched into a novel. As negative as that all sounds, by the end I appreciated this book. Any negative reactions I had were more from just how off the book feels after the first. It's like going to see a movie expecting a comedy and it turns out to be a good drama. Even though the movie was good you can feel a little disconcerted. This book ends up being a lot like the Silmarillion to the hobbit, or chronicles of Riddick to pitch black. The first story is very character driven in a much more isolated world, and then the sequel, or other book, spends the majority of the time expanding the universe instead of capitalizing on the existing characters. There really just isn't a sequel to Gideon the Ninth without expanding the universe. The world was too small for the characters to really grow. So this book is about world building and I felt that was done really well. The universe feels very unique and interesting, and opens up a lot of opportunity for what the 3rd book can be. I would guess that there was a bit of a kill your darlings situation with the first book where the extended universe was drastically cut to get to the meat of the story, and this was a book to get all that out. I'll also note that the story of Harrow is still good even if it is dragged out. The last 1/3 of the book is much better in this regard. So, I think the secret to enjoying this book is to understand that it is really two things put together. A really cool world building effort with a character story that's dragged out through the first 2/3rds and then really committed to in the end. I liked it by the end, but I would be disappointed if it doesn't get back to something more character driven in the 3rd. Also, I think this would have worked better as a couple of novellas.

I absolutely loved Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir’s “lesbian necromancers in a gothic mansion in space” story told from the perspective of a jock whose interest in the plot around her couldn’t have been less, and whose main concern was fitting with the cute women around her. Gideon had a wild story, one that involved an ancient puzzle, some horrifying uses of necromancy (lots of bones involves), a bit of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and a climax that tied together a lot of the emotional beats that lays so quietly and subtly under the story. Now comes Harrow the Ninth, the second entry in a planned trilogy, which switches narration from the jock warrior Gideon to the young, crafty necromancer Harrow, who’s still reeling from the events of Gideon, and finds herself in a whole new hostile environment and trying to figure out her place in a whole new hierarchy. What unfolds from there gets…well, it gets complicated. Very, very complicated. And that’s without mentioning the alternating chapters that find Harrow remembering the story of Gideon the Ninth…except that Gideon’s not there, the characters aren’t quite the same, and the plot keeps diverging from our memories. Harrow the Ninth is undeniably dense and complicated, even without the weird questions of memory that those chapters bring up; add to that the shift from Gideon’s careless, simple narration to Harrow’s careful, secretive perspective, and you have a book that feels exponentially more challenging than the original. That goes for the plot as well; while Gideon had the hook of this strange gothic murder mystery, Harrow has all the scheming of Game of Thrones as people jockey for the favor of God (whose name might be John?), prepare for an apocalyptic threat, and bully Harrow and another newcomer into showing the powers that they need to display very quickly - oh, and no one (and I mean no one) is being honest about their motivations or even their actions. All of that can make Harrow the Ninth a bit less “fun” to read than Gideon, but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable, stunningly imaginative, richly characterized, or compelling and gripping. If nothing else, Harrow kicks off the mystery early with this alternate version of the events of Gideon, but it won’t take long until you’re just as immersed into this weird relationship with God, the people around him, or the story of the one man who keeps trying to murder her in increasingly horrifying ways. Muir’s imagination is allowed even more free reign in Harrow than in Gideon; while the first book allowed us to see a truly wild version of necromancy and horrifying magic, Harrow takes it even further, creating spectral horrors, alternate dimensions of death, magic of wholly unexpected schools, and a whole lot of violence, all while developing her universe far beyond the limits of Gideon’s limited interest. In some ways, Harrow definitely feels like the middle book of a trilogy; while it’s entirely self-contained, you can definitely feel the threads being placed for what’s to come, and the end of the book sets up a third book that should just be a delight. But that doesn’t detract from any of the pleasures of Harrow the Ninth, whose writing is so good that the simple shift from second-person to first-person made me sit up straighter and gasp a little bit. Gideon is a blast, but Harrow might just be better for its complexity and ambition, and it’s all the better because Muir more or less nails it, taking on some astonishing difficulty curves and sticking the landing perfectly. What a joy this book is; here’s hoping that book three comes soon.

I liked it

It begins well, picking up after the first book and taking the story from a planetary level to one encompassing the galaxy. And that is where it starts meandering, mixing Harrow's relationship with Gideon with that of the perils of whole humanity. And the mix is not smooth. Sometimes it felt like the objective is to confuse the reader into a perception of a complex story. And the new constructs introduced do not have sufficient basis to comprehend. Overall, it reminded me of the experience after seeing LOTR Fellowship of the Rings movie (having not heard of the books before). Utter confusion as to what actually happened at the climax, with the expectation that the movie is yet to finish, inspite of the rest of the audience leaving the theatre. The plus side there was that it drove me to the world Tolkien, where my curiosity was whetted. Here, with no such safety net, the only hope is that the third and final instalment brings the threads together to a wholesome and satisfactory conclusion. And more importantly, that it comes soon, so that all the characters and the story till now does not dissipate.

This book gave me the entire spectrum of emotions while simultaneously making me stretch those brain muscles trying to figure out just what on earth what was happening. ) No longer Gideon as the MC in this book, Harrow becomes the MC, & you actually start to empathise & understand why she is the way she is and dare I say it, come to love her? At least did. All I wanted to do was cook a nice meal for her, wrap her in layer of warm blankets (perhaps give her a black Oodie so she can match her aesthetic while also being snuggly) & throw on a movie that she will pretend to hate & scorn out-loud while also secretly enjoying it. The life of a Lyctor is not an easy one, especially when you didn't go into it fully prepared, or fully by choice, & especially when you're hiding parts of yourself, from yourself. This story has more layers than an onion, more rings than a thousand year old tree! The world building is divine, the character development is exceptional, & the plot is chaotically, insanely brilliant. However to even begin to actually explain the plot without spoilers from the first book would end up in chaotic sentences which would make me look less than sane, but guarantee if you enjoy books with Necromancers, redemption, murder plots & mysteries upon mysteries, give this series a go. Be warned though, this book will break your heart!

5/5 for the plot of the book, this 1/5 review is about of the quality of this copy. The book is NOT original. While the listing and copyright page claim it's printed in the USA, this copy is a cheaply-made knockoff re-print from Wrocław, Poland. The spine and cover are misaligned. The misalignment carries into the inside of the book where a few pages (for example, the title page and the "act one" page in my photos) have a strip that should have been printed but isn’t. The cover has scratches all over it. The book lacks the blue "insert" that is supposed to peek through the front cover. The margins are differenet throughout the book: 1,3 to 1,6 cm - this may seem miniscule but it was enough for me to notice at first glance and annoying enough to measure. The paper feels different than in the original, poorer quality. The contents of the book seem to be fine (no missing pages etc) but the book feels very bad quality.

chegou antes do previsto, em perfeitas condições