cover

Author: Tamsyn Muir

Format: Paperback, E-Book

tldr if u don’t want spoilers I’d definitely recommend, but beware extraordinarily terminally online Tumblr humour.

I read all three currently released books in the Locked Tomb series before I got a chance to write this review and I don’t have the energy to do all three or even one really tbh so some scattered thoughts:

Gideon the Ninth is set in a futuristic-y scifi/fantasy setting whose core feature is that certain parts of the population are necromancers who can manipulate bones, flesh, souls, the like. Gideon Nav is not a necromancer, but a youngish hotheaded teenager (19 years old I think) on the Ninth planet of the core system who gets forced by her rival-but-very-clearly-enemies-to-friends/lovers[^1] Harrowhark to become Harrow’s cavalier and join her in a series of trials intended for Harrow to become a Lyctor, a saintly figure in the religion / world of the novels. The trials feature a cavalier-necromancer duo from each of the other seven houses; the bulk of the book follows Gideon as she tries to get herself acclimated to being a cavalier, which typically involves a lifetime of training, and helping Harrow figure out the actual trials and the mystery of the House they’re taken to for the trials.

Is a good book, I would recommend.

The core complaint I have with the book is that, as multiple people mentioned to me beforehand, the humour in the book is extraordinarily 2010s Tumblr-esque, which will at best make you groan and at worst get a little bit genuinely grating at times. Gideon as narrator is kind of just Like That, unfortunately.

Ok some spoiler thoughts—I would in fact rec reading Gideon before reading this if you intend to read Gideon in the future.

SPOILERS FOR GIDEON
  • As a friend put it, Tamsyn Muir doesn’t really have the writing skills for a murder mystery tbh, which is what the second half of the book turns into after the deaths of Abigail/Magnus. Partially this is due to like, only getting Gideon’s POV, but some large portion of the second half is just Gideon being angsty / cracking jokes while Palamedes and Harrow explain what they’ve just discovered while offscreen. E.g. Dulcinea being Cytherea like, I suppose could’ve been guessed but not really—all you can figure out is that she’s just clearly very important.
  • In a similar vein, the plot really picks up after the death of the kids in particular but ends up going too fast imo—both major-seeming exposition scenes (Gideon explaining that she killed Harrow’s parents and Harrow explaining that no she opened the Tomb) went by too quickly / needed to be wayy more fleshed out
  • I was kinda disappointed in the lack of actual necromancy in Gideon—beyond some very few parts (e.g. anything with the soul / the actual reveal of how Lyctorhood works) it generally felt like necromancy could’ve been replaced with any other magic system and generally the book would’ve functioned similarly; necromancy serves the overall aesthetic more than anything else. Thankfully the other two books expand on necromancy a lot more.
  • The world suuuuper opens up in books 2 and 3 in particular—this was a bit jarring to me at first but definitely very welcome.
  • I feel obligated to mention my friend’s complaint about Tamsyn using ‘war crime’ to describe Harrow like no she wasn’t a literal war crime they weren’t at war !!! Nothing to do with war !!!
  • Did you know its Tamsyn not Tasmyn??? I didn’t for a while.
  • I swear to god Sex Pal.
SPOILERS FOR HARROW THE NINTH AND NONA THE NINTH (all together, ideally don't click unless you've read both)
  • I think Gideon contributes sooo much more to the story when she’s dead (sorry). She’s soo much more interesting as someone Harrow can be angsty about. Similarly sorry idt I ship Gideon and Harrow, again because I think Gideon should be dead for the good of the story. It’s so funny in Book 3 when you finally get a POV of Gideon from a third person and it becomes sooo immediately obvious how annoying she is to anyone else.
  • Why does Tamsyn Muir like fucking with Harrow’s memories so much I swear if Alecto the Ninth begins with Harrow losing her memories again like I know its actually Alecto not Harrow in Nona but still.
  • I love John he’s great. Even though he like, literally nuked the world and tried to kill the survivors. Ignoring that he’s great. But also how did he manage to only let the trillionares go.
  • Why Paul. Couldn’t they have chosen a better name. It’s better than Sex Pal at least.
  • Partly because I was reading really quickly / kinda in a fugue state but I did start losing track of all the souls flying around by the end of Nona. Probably anyone reading slightly more carefully would’ve done fine though.
  • Lyctorhood is so interesting as a concept. Especially the part where John made them all go through soo much unnecessary angst.
  • Gideon’s fucking sunglasses are wayyy too useful.

[^1] I mentioned this in the spoiler for books 2/3 section but sorry I don’t ship them. Despite the cover splash text proclaiming lesbian necromancers in space.