Reading Update: Locked Tomb edition

[jaggedwolf]

Gideon The Ninth by Tamayn Muir

A re-read! Quite the anatomical and necromantical refresher.

I love Gideon in this book so much, that did not change at all. The irreverence, the jokes, the joy she takes in her swordsmanship, how good she is despite her entire frickin life, the way she never stops blaming herself for the death of the 4th House kids and of course, that final choice.

Harrow works far less for me on a re-read, when I'm not caught up on the newness of the pool revelation and when I'm inappropriately giggling at "war crime" being the term used, but I was at neutral on her after the first time I read this book as it was haha.

Pal & Camilla are my fave necro-cav pair <3 They looked at the data together and decided she should use two short swords! Camilla tells the other cavaliers to ignore Pal when he tries to make an analogy between learning necromancy and swordfighting! Pal's fury after the unnecessary duel!

Cytherea's creepin killer vibes are A+. But so are her words during the avulsion trial. And lol from the sixth house's perspective this girl they know very well has been ignoring them and the first thing she says to them is suggesting a trial that would've killed Cam. This is why you gotta trade pics so you don’t get catfished SexPal smh

Adore this ensemble cast, man. I forgot Abigail and Magnus die right after their own anniversary dinner, that Isaac and Jeannemary almost bleed themselves dry trying to summon their spirits back, that the third house trio is Like That

LOL I'd misremembered Silas as trying to Lyctor and that being how he got himself killed, but damn, even he gets morally outraged at what being a Lyctor entails and thinks no one should do it.

Did each of the Lyctors (or first eight necros) design each of the trials? Was there always a plan to make more? Is the split-lab bone constructs trial made by the second since the key it grants opens the second’s room?

First House == Earth is super obvious on re-read but am now wondering if House orderings is habitability at the time of resurrection. Or was it merely the respective Lyctor felt like it.

Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

I’ve landed in the odd position of wanting to keep up with this series, but more for the plot than for the characters. Which is not a bad position at all, but means I’m far more interested in trawling through theories on reddit than fic on AO3.

To be clear, I found it enjoyable and fascinating, but in a way completely orthogonal to how I delighted in the previous book. Much like one can’t enjoy Cain’s Jawbone like a normal book, I wouldn’t have a good time if I didn’t like the puzzling it together aspects, for if GtN was a murder mystery where I was emotionally invested in the characters and saddened by deaths, HtN was more like being dropped mid-season into a reality show of assholes and going “lmao you really live like this huh”

You see, while I finished the first book devastated at Gideon's death and only wanting to read the next book if she came back, when she did come back in this book I...didn't...really...care...

I mean, I cared in terms of the plot shenaniganery but not like how I cared about her in the first book - when she was fighting heralds and internally monologuing I was like, hey, can we go back to the river bubble and the Sleeper plot, and when she was squabbling with Ianthe over who loves Harrow more or whatever I was like, hey, go fight Mercymorn again and reveal some plot clues again pls.

But I jump too far forward. Let's start with the minor to major spoilers I had before even opening the book:

• The Pov has engaged in s/Gideon/Ortus
• Ianthe and Harrow hang out a lot
• God exists (this isn't actually a spoiler I just forgot that he's the emperor)
• a threesome on a table happens
• somehow, a coffee shop au

Obviously this meant some things weren’t surprises - as soon as Augustine says he’s got a way to distract God I knew threesome time was happening, etc. is the difference between dios apate major and dios apate minor whether they try to collect his sperm.

Stuff I liked!

• Mercymorn wins best lyctor award - though she has little competition - for being fucking funny (I love her stupid speaking quirk!! ok!!) and furious and trying to kill God. And for randomly attempting to mercy-kill Harrow on her way to the RB? RIP Mercy who the fuck knows where dead lyctors go
• Also funny that she has to keep saying she isn’t the one moving Cytherea’s body
• Ortus and Abigail were both great - totally see why this very forthright necromancer got herself murdered, and I love the moment where Ortus tells Harrow that as her cavalier he will fight and die for her but he remains a grown man who gets to think whatever the fuck he wants. And together they summoned a stylized Nonius!! (What era is Nonius from again)
• Soup scene as a concept was baller even though you know it’s gonna fail from the start because like. God is right there bro. Not in front of his soup please.
• Harrow’s 22+2 letters after self-lobotomying. What the fuck are in the other letters. This is very death note of you Harrow and I’m here for it. Why did you silence Judith. Did you have a quick meeting with BoE before the GtN epilogue Harrow. Please spill.
• Camilla and Pal again, love them.
• Camilla being like, yeah, obviously we had a plan for Palamdes dying and I found you on this random planet to help out with that, what’s the big deal Harrow. (But also did her letter say more than what she read because she tore it up really quickly.)
• Palamedes having seen the pathway to perfect lyctorhood but Cytherea derailing him?? :( :(
• The revelation of perfect Lyctorhood -> God’s murder -> Mercy and Augustine planning a neither happy nor unhappy ending together after all these years. Baller.
• The pieces behind Gideon’s birth being revealed as everyone shares how unhinged they are
• The satisfaction of figuring out the Sleeper was Gideon’s mom who was Commander Wake
• Pyrrha popping up just to tell Gideon (the younger) that she also fucked Gideon’s mom. Literally no one asked but I guess she thought if she didn’t share then, when would she get the chance.

Stuff I was meh about

• I had to really force myself to not skim fight scenes/necromantic discussions because at some point early in the book I realized it was all going over my head.
• All the revelations being crammed into one single conversation was A Lot and meant I even missed some really obvious ones like Wake being in the sword or Harrow getting into the tomb via Gideon’s blood on her hands
• Gideon The First’s goal of murdering Harrow was exciting the first few times and then rapidly became boring, especially since the reason for the murder-goal was probably just that John told him to
• Did the 7th RB just fuck off or did Gideon The First + river ghosts manage to defeat it? Because either way we spend ten months in-universe freaking out about the RB and about how Harrow would die to it and in the end everyone drops off the call to go argue in God’s bedroom while the saint of duty lives up to his name
• I’m sorry, my brain will never manage to remember eye colors the way this series wants me to. I barely manage hair colors as is.

I’d probably have to reread the whole book to fully get it but uh, I have no urge to and will happily let the internet fill in the gaps for me.

Nona The Ninth Excerpts

Yeah I have no self-control.

The three-page prologue

John time...

Need a Horizon Zero Dawn crossover now. Also this + Blood of Eden + “you’ve no right to something when you’re the one who abandoned it” makes me think of Heaven Will Be Mine. I should replay that.

John probably renamed them all, huh, and I’d forgotten that everyone except him loses their memory after being resurrected - like who the fuck knows what the dynamics between A- and M- and C- were like before they died? Just John, and he probably half-lied to them about it like he did everything else.

The 73-page excerpt after that

What a fun household and PoV, have no idea who Nona is. Obviously Harrow’s body, but she can’t read/write (not for lack of teaching), is uninterested in swords/bones, and is scarily good at just...mimicking people? Becoming them? Some other phrase? Is this why no one liked Alecto, if it is her?

• I completely missed all hints that Nona is sick but the internet says those exist
• Hot Sauce has some connection to necromancers right
• Who is Observing Nona, I dislike it
• Pal and Cam precisely time-sharing is of course how that would go but I absolutely did not expect the Nona-transmitted knuckle-kiss, dang.