The Locked Tomb Series
Gideon the Ninth
Why I read this book
The book got a ton of praise by a ton of publications, and was shortlisted for the Nebula, and won the Locus for “Best First Novel”. The second book, Harrow the Ninth is receiving similar praise, and I love a good sci-fi/fantasy trilogy/tetralogy.
How was the book
- You may love or hate the dialogue – Gideon talks like a millennial and the novel is set in some far off impossible place so you’d be expecting folks to be speaking that bygone-ese you hear in fantasy novels, a stilted too-formal approximation of Shakespeare rendered in prose. It’s exceptionally playful, and there was a minute in the beginning where I thought I might not want to continue on with the book as I was worried the dialogue would eventually grate or veer into an almost unintentional satire. Fortunately it was a passing feeling, and Muir has an excellent sense for story pacing and dialogue in service of the plot. There are plenty of puns and modern-day colloquialisms, if that is your sort of thing. I would call it less funny than that it doesn’t take it’s dialogue as deathly serious as other fantasy/sci-fi novels.
- There is a will-they won’t they dynamic between leads Harrow, the Ninth House necromancer, and Gideon, her cavalier or sworn sword, but there is nothing overly sexual about this novel despite the lesbian lead. It’s a hallmark of how far the genre has come in a short 50 years to normalize this type of main character, to have her sexuality only be a minor facet of her character. It’s refreshing to have come so far.
- There are times where I struggled with the action being depicted, lost in who was doing what. The first time I really noticed it was when Gideon was fighting a large skeletal construct at the behest of her necromancer, Harrow. I got the gist of the action and sort of made up my own pacing, as you could tell the scene would end with the construct deconstructed. The action scenes are balletic, Gideon wielding a rapier in defense while Harrow conjures, and this is difficult to depict narratively.
- It really is a great example of world-building. There is so much detail under the surface of this world, and the way your understanding of it unfolded with the narrative was a real joy. Great science fiction and fantasy series are as much about their worlds as they are their characters or their plots – if the world is interesting enough, you could pace some automatons getting coffee and you’d have a compelling read.
- This novel is chock-full of references to the Bible, classic literature, history, or countless other topics. Everything was chosen with purpose and double meaning. I’d recommend reading the “A Little Explanation of the Naming System” at the end before Act 2 for pronunciation help. I didn’t, and I wasn’t even close. Hermy-one, anyone?
- I will certainly be reading the rest of this series, as Muir lays out enough thread to tease a very compelling tetralogy (it’s up to 4 books now with Alecto being announced as the penultimate book after Harrow the Ninth and before Nina the Ninth, which tickles me with a through-line of the Grecian furies being subtext).
- Most of the novel takes place in the falling-apart Canaan House (not sure what the importance of Canaan is in the name other than as an ethnic group that crops up from time to time in the Bible), but this very much feels like a Gothic Novel trope, harkening back to Northanger Abbey or Fall of the House of Usher. It’s a cross between Clue and an escape house.
Plot
Act I
Gideon Nav plans her escape from the dour Ninth House, an attempt that is quickly foiled by the Heir to the House and rival Harrowhark Nonagesimus. When Harrow’s cavalier, Ortus Nigenad, escapes on Gideon’s shuttle, Gideon is pressed into service in his place. On The Emperor’s summons, Gideon and Harrow travel to the First House and compete with the other scions of The Nine Houses System to ascend to the glorious and immortal position of Lyctor—a position Harrow desperately needs in order to revive her dying House. On the first night of the Trials, the shuttles that carried the competitors disappear, trapping them on the planet.
Act II
The Lyctor Trials begin, and all of the Houses spread out to work independently. Abandoned by Harrowhark, Gideon spends much of her time training and meeting the other competitors. She begins to build friendships with the Fourth House teens, who admire her, the Fifth House cavalier, who seeks to encourage cooperation, and the Seventh House necromancer, who takes a keen and often flirtatious interest in Gideon. The Second House keeps to themselves, but is generally cordial, and, after a round of duels, she develops an animosity with the Third House cavalier. Sixth and Eighth House are rarely seen at all. It quickly becomes clear that the inter-House bonds are extraordinarily weak, and the guests treat each other with open distrust and even outright hostility.
As Gideon navigates the social culture of Canaan House, Harrowhark descends into the basement to the mysterious laboratory containing tests that stretch the bounds of necromancy and attempts to reverse-engineer the secret to Lyctorhood. She marks Sixth House necromancer Palamedes Sextus as her main competition, and the two race to solve the trials before the other. When Harrowhark fails to return home one evening, Gideon teams up with Palamedes and his cavalier, Camilla Hect, to locate her and is introduced to the basement facility. Gideon and Harrowhark learn that both necromancer and cavalier are required to solve the puzzle and develop a tentative camaraderie. After a dinner party is thrown by the Fifth House, followed by a night working in the facility, the pair beat their first test and earn a key. As they are leaving, they discover the murdered bodies of Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn.
Act III
The investigation into the murders of the Fifth House reveals little about their deaths but cracks the mysteries of the First House wide open. The law-abiding Second House attempts to bring in the authorities, but are stopped by the guardians of Canaan House who insist there is no law here, only the vague instruction from the Lord. With all of the necromancer/cavalier teams aware of the facility and the elusive keys, the race to complete challenges grows ever tighter. Despite their host’s warnings of a malevolent spirit haunting the laboratory, Harrow and Gideon descend again into the facility to complete their cruelest test yet (with a little help from Dulcinea Septimus). With the completion of the last laboratory comes the realization that keys are not only limited but nearly all claimed. The atmosphere abruptly loses all semblance of cordiality with the appearance of another body and the disappearance of Seventh cavalier, Protesilaus Ebdoma.
Keys come to the front yet again, and this time a round of duels and thieving accompany it. Judith Deuteros of Second House makes a power play, followed by Ianthe Tridentarius of Third. Both fail to secure new keys, and the larger group fractures into three: Fifth and Seventh, who are dead, missing, or incapacitated; Second, Third, and Eighth, who have each gone off separately to pursue keys; and Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth, who have teamed up to follow the investigations to their conclusions. As Harrow and Palamedes guard the critically ill scion of the Seventh House, Gideon and Fourth House descend into the facility to search for Protesilaus. Gideon’s group discovers a terrifying and impossible bone construct monster, and the Fourth necromancer and cavalier are slain.
Act IV
Following the death of Fourth House, Gideon and Harrow have a falling out over Dulcinea. Suspecting that Gideon may have become compromised by her feelings, Harrow forbids her from seeing the Seventh and refuses to release Gideon from her service. Angry and upset, Gideon accepts an offer to take tea with Eighth House, where she learns that the childhood flu that killed a generation of Ninth children, was in reality an act of genocide. Lost, and finding more evidence against Harrow, Gideon turns to Palamedes. After an all-House meeting, Harrow explains every secret that has been kept from Gideon since birth, and the girl’s bond becomes stronger than ever.
Sixth and Ninth return to the keys and laboratories, but things in Canaan House quickly collapse. Second House duels and kills the priests of Canaan House in an attempt to send an SOS, Ianthe locates the last key and pieces together the horrible mystery of Lyctorhood, Silas and Colum are killed in a battle with Ianthe, and Palamedes realizes that Dulcinea Septimus is not who she claims to be. Cytherea the First, Seventh Saint to Serve the Lord Undying reveals her true identity and her plan to lure The Emperor home and kill him. In the following battle, Gideon gives her life for Harrow to ascend to Lyctorhood and defeat Cytherea.
Act V
Harrow, broken and grief-stricken, defeats Cytherea the First.
Epilogue
The new Lyctors, Ianthe and Harrow, are brought on to The Emperor’s shuttle, where he asks them to join him in the war to protect a dying Empire. They agree.
Harrow the Ninth
Some Book Notes
This book had a lot of promise – Muir spun a lot of plates. I think focus could have been a bit more honed, and some of the payoffs a bit more realized. The last 100 pages of the book are somehow more confusing than the previous 400. Stylistically, it is a departure from Gideon the Ninth – more florid prose and a virtual anatomy class lesson of bone-dense vocabulary. I liked the voice better than the previous novel since it felt like it fit the narrative.
One other note, the back of the book jacket has the byline “The Necromancers are back , and they’re gayer than ever” which I think is pandering and disingenuous. The book is much more than “lesbian necromancer fiction” and sexuality plays such a minor role in the novel itself, relegated just to the marketing of the work.
Plot
Prologue
The night before the Emperor’s murder, the Mithraeum, the sacred shuttle-home of God and his Lyctors, is facing the final assault of the Seventh Resurrection Beast, called Number Seven. The Emperor and Ianthe Tridentarius attempt to offer Harrowhark Nonagesimus extra protection to make up for her weakness, but she refuses them. Ianthe comes to her and speaks of letters, work, and their former cavaliers and begs her to ascend to her full strength, but Harrow dismisses her and sends her away. The battle begins in earnest, and the Emperor and his Lyctors sink into The River. Harrow is thrown back out, impaled, and dying on her own rapier.
Parodos
Fourteen months earlier, Harrow appears back on Ninth House with her cavalier, Ortus Nigenad reading a summons from the Emperor calling all the heirs of the Nine Houses to come and study and ascend to the position of Lyctor. She instructs him that, though she knows he is no great swordsman, she needs him to take his rightful place as cavalier primary and accompany her to Canaan House. As Harrow and Ortus argue over the propriety of Ortus attending her, Harrow sees a hallucination of the Body in the Locked Tomb in the place of a servant. Harrow reveals to her cavalier that she needs his help to cover up the fact that she is insane.
Act I
Harrow, healing from her traumatic ascent to Lyctorhood on the flagship Erebos, begins to learn the truth of responsibilities of a Lyctor: the Emperor explains that with the resurrection of the planets came the creation of the Resurrection Beasts, who now hunt him and his Lyctors and that no Lyctors may ever return home for fear of luring the Beasts. In conversation, she claims that her cavalier was Ortus, not Gideon Nav. Ianthe visits her rooms and gives Harrow letters that she does not remember writing with instructions on how to live her life after “the work.” Following an insurgent attack on Imperial warships, Harrow’s new eldest sister, Mercymorn the First, comes to collect the Emperor, Harrow, and Ianthe and return them to Mithraeum. They travel through the River, a metaphysical plane of spirit magic. At Mithraeum, they hold a funeral for Cytherea the First and Harrow meets the other original Lyctors, Augustine the First and Ortus the First. The next morning, Harrow wakes with her sword thrust into Cytherea’s corpse and no memory of getting there.
Simultaneously, Harrow relives the events at Canaan House with Ortus Nigenad. She recalls their first night on First House and Teacher’s lengthy explanation of the original Lyctors, as well as his introduction of the Facility and the monster who haunts it. Called the Sleeper, the Teacher only explains that a great tragedy would befall the postulants should she awake from her coffin. Sometime after, she has a conversation with the Fifth House necromancer, Abigail Pent, in the library about the Lyctoral artifacts and their research. During this conversation, Abigail begins to notice strange abnormalities in Harrow’s spirit energy as a result of the Ninth House Genocide. Throughout these re-lived experiences, Harrow is continually accosted by characters who ask her if “this is how it happened,” as well as hallucinated notes with messages about eggs.
Act II
On the Mithraeum, Harrow and Ianthe adjust to life with their new siblings. Harrow trains with Mercymorn, her reluctant and critical tutor, on killing planets in the path of the Resurrection Beast and chasing their ghosts in the River so that Number Seven cannot feed on their energies. Likewise, Ianthe trains with Augustine. Both girls suffer abnormalities that frustrate their mentors. Unlike the other Lyctors, who are protected by the automatic skill of their dead cavaliers, Harrow’s incomplete Lyctorhood leaves her defenseless while her consciousness is in the River. For Ianthe, her newly attached arm becomes useless in a fight. Along with their lessons, Harrow gathers bits of information about the original Lyctors—both in first-hand accounts from The Emperor and Augustine, as well as her own sleuthing and deduction. Her adjustment to her new life is complicated by Ortus, who has judged her a danger to the Emperor and attempts to assassinate her fourteen separate times. Additionally, she begins to see the corpse of Cytherea wandering the ship.
In Canaan House, under an unending and unseasonable cold rain, the Sleeper proves to be less asleep than the necromancer and cavalier teams hoped. Judith Deuteros is the first to fall, shot with an ancient weapon while trying to solve a puzzle in the Facility. Her cavalier, Marta Dyas, follows the Sleeper back to its coffin and reports what she can about its state and weapons. She attempts to break into the coffin but finds the plex glass impenetrable. The next to be killed are Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus of Sixth House. At their autopsy, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth House come together and agree to gather as many of the remaining postulants as possible to plan a coordinated attack against the Sleeper. Harrow continues to see hallucinated notes throughout and strange objects begin washing into the building with the storm.
Act III
As the Mithraeum battens down for battle with Number Seven, Harrow and Ianthe’s respective issues come to a head. Harrow, no longer able to sleep as her war with Ortus reaches new heights, plans to murder her brother with a bone marrow soup. Simultaneously, Ianthe receives an ultimatum on her sword lessons and has only days to figure out how to make her replacement arm function. Harrow’s soup plot goes off disastrously, drawing God’s ire and failing to permanently kill Ortus; but she does manage to successfully amputate Ianthe’s arm and grow her a new one. After repairing her relationship with Augustine, Ianthe returns the favor by bringing their elder siblings in on the plot to end Ortus. Augustine plans a formal dinner party (and ménage à trois) to distract the Emperor and give Harrow her shot at Ortus—A shot that is stolen out from under her by the corpse of Cytherea, who stabs him and drags him into the incinerator. Seeing him helpless, Harrow makes the call to save Ortus. The Emperor is disappointed, Augustine and Mercymorn are furious with each other, and Cytherea is missing—but in thanks, Harrow receives knowledge on how to protect herself from Ortus.
In Canaan House, the plans are going equally poorly. Harrow stumbles upon Silas Octakiseron murdering Coronabeth Tridentarius, quickly followed by his suicide. Confused by their brief conversation and concerned about her sanity, Harrow keeps this to herself as the postulants gather in Marta Dyas’s room to plan the battle against the Sleeper. A week later, Abigail and Magnus gently corner Harrow into admitting her concerns for her sanity. Instead of shock or pity, Abigail suggests that Harrow might instead be haunted.
Act IV
As part of a mission to prepare for Number Seven, Harrow is sent to an uninhabited planet. There, she meets Camilla Hect who is traveling with Coronabeth Tridentarius and Judith Deuteros and working with the Blood of Eden. Despite believing her to be dead, Harrow presents her with the appropriate letter and learns her past-self has promised Camilla any assistance she can offer. Camilla presents Harrow with a section of Palamedes Sextus’s skull and asks her to confirm that he has successfully attached his revenant to this piece. She does and learns that he has preserved himself in a “bubble” on the banks of the River for the last eight months, anchored to bits of his skeleton. When she resurfaces with Camilla, at Palamedes’s request, Harrow remakes his jaw into a hand. Judith attempts to tell Harrow about a traitor in Mithraeum, but Coronabeth silences her before she can finish her thoughts. Camilla leaves, claiming that she and Harrow are no longer on the same side.
Back at the Mithraeum, Cytherea remains missing and preparations continue. Mercymorn explains that the best way to fight Number Seven is to battle it until it is tired, and then drag it down to the lowest level of the River and cast it into the stoma, or mouth of Hell. As time ticks down, Harrow comes to accept the inevitability of her death and starts praying. As they make their final battle plans, the Emperor repeatedly encourages Harrow to spend the battle safely locked in his rooms with him. She learns that if the Emperor was to die the entire Nine Houses System would die and become a supermassive black hole, as well as of the existence of A.L., the Emperor’s late companion. On the day the Beast is expected to make contact, Ortus makes one last attempt on Harrow’s life. When asked why he is bothering to murder her so close to her inevitable death, he admits that the murder plots were not his idea.
In Canaan House, the postulants prepare to battle the Sleeper. The endless rain turns to sleet and snow, and horrible organs begin to grow through the cracks of the building and filling the halls. Teacher, appearing half-mad, has only doomsday prophecies to offer, conflating the Sleeper and the Body in the Locked Tomb, and seems relieved at the prospect of his death.
Epiparados
Harrow and Ianthe are in an unknown location, likely aboard the Erebos. Harrow has written twenty-four encrypted (and cursed) letters for Ianthe and herself, each labeled with a specific circumstance for opening. They have reached the end of their planning phase, and it is time to embark on “the procedure.” Harrow plans to perform brain surgery on herself—removing her ability to conceive of Gideon Nav so that she cannot be fully integrated into Harrow’s soul. Ianthe begs Harrow to explain why she is doing this, but Harrow only explains that she has chosen Ianthe because she can understand her grief. As her eyes begin to shift, she impresses Ianthe to begin and they perform the procedure.
Act V
After her stabbing on the Mithraeum, Harrow slides through a series of different scenarios in the River before waking and remembering Gideon Nav. She also realizes that Ortus the First’s true name is Gideon the First and it was her procedure that had muddled her ability to know his name. Fully awake to the reality of the River, Abigail explains that she and the other revenant postulants have planned an exorcism of the invasive soul haunting her. They attempt a summoning, but the Sleeper appears with superhuman strength and abilities. The River, susceptible to the unconscious, has begun to operate on the Sleepers terms—and created a world full of powerful guns and that greatly weakens necromancy so that Harrow cannot fight back. In response, Ortus begins to recite his Noniad and Abigail manages to summon the ghost of Matthias Nonius.
Changing the rules to that of a Nigenadian epic poem, Nonius succeeds where the others have failed and manages to banish the soul of the Sleeper, whose dog tags read “Awake.” According to Abigail, the Sleeper has two ties and will also need to be defeated above on Mithraeum. Before returning to the River, Matthias Nonius asks to be sent to help the Lyctors fight Number Seven and settle a debt with Gideon the First. Ortus, Protesilaus, and Marta go with him. Abigail and Magnus convince Harrow to return to her body even though it would mean the destruction of Gideon Nav souls, but after they return to the River, Dulcinea informs Harrow that whatever she left in her body is not a revenant or fragment but rather, unlike anything she’s seen before. Harrow decides to anchor herself to the Locked Tomb and give Gideon the chance to live.
Aboard the Mithraeum, Gideon Nav wakes up inside Harrow’s freshly-murdered body to the Mithraeum infested with the Heralds of the Resurrection Beast. Unlocking her full Lyctor powers, she heals the damage. Struggling to get used to her new body, she fights her way through until she comes upon Mercymorn who balks at the color of her eyes. Gideon learns that it was Mercymorn who tried to kill Harrow and, as she comes to some decision about the cause of Gideon’s unique eye color, Mercymorn immediately tries to kill her again. Gideon is only saved by the appearance of Cytherea, who shoots Mercymorn and disappears. Looking for her in the halls, Gideon connects with Ianthe, who is irritated to find Gideon replacing Harrow, and Augustine, who takes one look at her eyes and immediately runs after Mercymorn. Ianthe leads Gideon to her rooms and provides her with a letter from Harrow, containing her sunglasses, and takes her to see the Emperor.
As they eavesdrop, they learn that Gideon is the child of the Emperor and Commander Wake, who has been possessing the body of Cytherea, conceived as part of a plot to open the Locked Tomb. Before the conversation can continue, Gideon the First barges in and murders Commander Wake. Mercymorn explains that Gideon’s golden eyes, the eyes of A.L., have confirmed to her and Augustine that A.L. was the Emperor’s cavalier, perfect Lyctorhood was always possible, and that none of their cavaliers had to die. Mercymorn kills the Emperor, but he does not stay dead and returns to kill Mercymorn. He demands that his Lyctors swear loyalty, which Gideon the First and Ianthe do. Augustine refuses and pushes the Mithraeum into the depths of the River where he attempts to push the Emperor into the stoma. Gideon is rescued by Gideon the First, who reveals herself to be his cavalier, Pyrrha Dve, and that her necromancer has died in battle with Number Seven. They watch helplessly as Ianthe frees the Emperor, dooming Augustine to the stoma, before being crushed by the weight of the River. As she dies, Gideon hears someone begin CPR.
Epilogue
Six months after the Emperor’s murder, a woman sits in a room, looking out a window into a bustling but war-tainted city thirty stories below. She is looked after by three women who hand her bones to arrange when the windows are covered with blackout curtains and have her exercise and practice swordwork when they are not. Sometimes, she is allowed to go down to the street to get food from the vendors, but they never return after the vendor notices she should have been burned by the heat of the food. One night, as they hide from the gunfire in the bathroom, she asks if the woman who takes care of her has figured out who she is. Camilla Hect replies “Not yet.”