The Locked Tomb Trilogy

[lunabee34]

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is splendid and glorious, and I loved every single second of it.

I can't really talk about how much I adore this book without spoilers, so I will say only that I am very happy with where the story goes in this second book and really looking forward to what might happen in the third.



View all my reviews



I love this book so much. I knew Gideon wasn't dead! Hurrah!

I also really, really love getting to see all the characters from the first book again. Abigail Pent is a marvel.

I'm not quite sure I understand exactly what's going on. I think I understand what's made up and what's not, but I'm unsure about the Harrow is insane part. I get that most of that stems from her tinkering with her brain to erase Gideon. But I'm unclear. Is the whole Harrow hallucinates and hears things and whatever a thing that actually happens back to her childhood or a manifestation of her brain surgery? And what about The Body? Has Harrow been seeing her all along, or does The Body just manifest after she does the brain surgery?

I guess The Body is Alecto. I'm not sure what to think about her since Augustine and Mercy think she's evil.

I'm also guessing that what is going to happen is that Harrow has somehow woken up in a new body and that Gideon will get to keep hers. Or wait. The first book said that Gideon's body was missing, so maybe it's been preserved and everyone will get back into their right suits eventually.

I hate that Mercy and Augustine die. :(

Totally not surprised that God is a bad guy.

Really, really looking forward to the conclusion.

Comments

Re: spoilery speculation

[ursula]

Alecto is the Body and also God's cavalier. Necromancers always have their cavaliers' eyes. If she was controlling his body, it would swap BACK to his original eyes.

Re: spoilery speculation

[kore]

I get it, so she is A.I./ Alecto/the Body, and Cytherea the First's body/Wake/the Sleeper is Gideon's mother. And Gideon was made to open the Locked Tomb so John could die, but Harrow opened it instead.

I think.

Re: spoilery speculation

[gloss]

This is my reading of it, yes, fwiw. (Though I think it's "A.L.", playing on the Annabel Lee stuff).

Re: spoilery speculation

[kore]

RIGHT, I read some riffing on how that could be "artificial life/intelligence" and that stuck, lol.

I was pretty surprised to see Annabel Lee! My theory is that all the literary references and memes are directly connected to stuff in the book, since a lot of other references (like the Biblical ones) are carefully thought out.

Re: spoilery speculation

[lunabee34]

Yeah, I'm interested to see if the third book makes some attempt to connect the world of the trilogy with our world given those reerences.

Re: spoilery speculation

[kore]

I've seen a lot of speculation that the Nine planets are our solar system (and maybe the Ninth is Pluto, which would be the not-a-planet meme, lol), although there are different theories about how they might match up. The one at the very end of Harrow sounds a lot like Earth, maybe. I saw a great idea that since John has all the Earth cultural references, maybe Gideon is blaspheming with the memes.

Re: spoilery speculation

[lunabee34]

Oh, I really like that explanation for the 9 planets. I love the idea of the books being in a future or multiverse Earth.

Re: spoilery speculation

[lunabee34]

That's my reading as well.