Thursday, October 15, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Harrow the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir




Harrow the Ninth is the sequel to last year's critically and publicly acclaimed SF/F novel, Gideon the Ninth (Which I reviewed here), which wound up being nominated for nearly every major award.  I liked Gideon the Ninth a lot with its fun sarcastic heroine and its setting of scifi necromancers and swordsmen really working for me.  At the same time, while the plot was excellent and it ended on a satisfying if somewhat devastating note, the book only sketched an outline of the greater setting, which made it hard to care about some parts of what was going on.  So I was excited for the sequel, but was also hoping for an expansion of the setting to better showcase the stakes of it all, to truly raise this trilogy into greatness.

And well, Harrow the Ninth kind of does the opposite, which made it really not work for me.  It's a very different story, with a different heroine (guess who!) at its core, and attempts through a very different narrative to expand the universe, all the while dealing with even more mysteries than in the first novel.  But the book again fails to explain really much of anything about the setting, which only becomes increasingly more relevant, making the final reveals at the end fall flat in terms of emotional impact.  There's a lot of interesting stuff here, and while the book loses the irreverent tone of its predecessor, it still reads very well, but the end results is more frustrating than satisfying...and not in a good way.

Note:  Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth are a bit inevitable, though I'll try to talk around them.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Harrowhark Nonagesimus has achieved her goal - she has become a Lyctor, one of the near-immortal, insanely powerful, necromantic saints serving the Emperor Undying, the God of the Nine Houses.  She is now Harrow the First.  And all it cost her was more than she was willing to give.

Now, Harrow finds herself under the tutelage of the Emperor himself and his three oldest remaining Lyctors (alongside the one other new Lyctor to survive the trial).  There's just one problem:  The Emperor - omnipotent as he is - and his Lyctors have been long on the run from an unstoppable threat, the Revenants of a dead planet, and one of those beings is on its way right for them.  Harrow will need to figure out her new power in order to help the others fight it off....if that's even possible.

Except Harrow's powers aren't working properly, and she can't quite call on the power of her cavalier.  And clearly she must be insane, because she keeps seeing the body from the Locked Tomb walking besides her.  And then there's the letters left to her by....herself, instructing her to do certain things on certain very unlikely circumstances, that hint that once again nothing is quite as it seems and no one can be trusted.....
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Harrow the Ninth is a very very different book from Gideon the Ninth.  For one, Harrow isn't a wisecracking swordswoman and of course she begins this book utterly heartbroken.  But well, even besides that the narrative is told very differently in a very fractured form, for a reason that is both apparent at the start and at the same time somewhat mysterious:  between the last book and this one, Harrow lobotomized herself for some reason, seemingly removing her memory of Gideon from her brain (this is not a spoiler, it's revealed fairly quickly).  As a result, she's confused and disjointed about what has happened, and the narrative adds to that by having the present day story (which still jumps back and forth a few times) told in the second person, and interspersing that narrative with what seems to be a retelling of the events of Gideon the Ninth, except in a way that's clearly warped and wrong.

The result of this is that while Gideon the Ninth was essentially at its heart a locked room murder mystery with space necromancers, swordswomen, lesbians, and more, Harrow the Ninth is instead a book filled with layers and layers of mysteries and a massive shortage of immediate answers.  Why did Harrow do this to herself, and what exactly did she do?  What exactly are the powers of the other Lyctors and why does Harrow both sometimes seem to have more power than them and other times absolutely less?   What exactly are the antagonists - and really who are they, as we are introduced to several enemies of the Emperor himself but never with clear answers - and what is there relationship not just to this whole situation, but to the Locked Tomb?  What exactly are the powers of the Emperor Undying and what is the Resurrection and his connection to everything?  Not only is the narrative deliberately written in a confusing way - again to reflect Harrow's own confusion - but the book revels in stacking layer and layer of mystery on top of each other here.

And honestly, it can't answer the questions it asks in a way that pays off.  As I just said, the book seemingly makes everything a mystery to the reader, even stuff like the basic parts of the setting that the characters should know.  For example, the "Resurrection" is an event Harrow and seemingly everyone knows about quite firmly, and even if that understanding might not be correct, the book never actually tells us what it actually is, or what the Emperor actually supposedly did in it.  And so not only this type of mystery kind of pointless, but it means the reader has no actual stake in finding out whether the truth the others understand is the actual truth, as the book hints it might not be.  A major antagonist faction is introduced in dialogue early on and then shows up midway through the novel, only to disappear and never really appear again for the rest of the book (being left for the sequel), which is just frustrating, and another antagonist is built up for the entire book only to be thrown aside for the final confrontation with barely an explanation.

All of this might work if the mysteries that are answered were actually interesting and satisfying, or if the characters in this book were really well done....and well, neither are.  Harrow's an okay character and it's easy to feel for her, but she's obviously not as fun as Gideon and her lobotomy makes her more of a cypher than anything, just another puzzle that needs answers instead of an independent character to root for.  The same is largely true of pretty much everyone else except for Harrow's fellow new Lyctor, Ianthe, who is a wonderful snarky nutjob who both knows what Harrow did and has seemingly no idea either about the situation at the same time.  She's great, but everyone else is just another puzzle and again none of these puzzles have that interesting solutions.  And the solutions that we do get just lead to MORE questions, which is where the book ends, on an absolutely ambiguous point for all of our characters.

That's about all I can say without going deep into spoilers, so I'm going to do that in ROT13 below.  But for a non-spoiler review, I'll sum it up by saying:  Harrow the Ninth is what happens when you decided to try and be clever and write a book about a billion mysteries, without either a well established setting or really great characters to make the reader care, and assume that resolving those mysteries with more mysteries will make it all satisfying.  I'm two books into this series, so I am likely to pick up the third just to hope to get some answers.  But it's not because I could recommend this book or the series itself anymore.  I'd probably advise you to just reread Gideon and wait for the third book to come out to see if it's worth continuing instead so as to not waste your time with frustration like I just did.

Spoilery talk in ROT13:  Gurer'f n ahzore bs vffhrf jvgu ubj Uneebj gur Avagu cebprrqf.  Gur obbx yvxr V zragvba nobir pbagnvaf n ahzore bs zlfgrevrf evtug sebz gur fgneg jvgu zber nqqrq nf gur obbx tbrf ba.  Gur ovt barf bs pbhefr ner:

1.  Jul qvq Uneebj ybobgbzvmr urefrys naq jura?
2.  Jung unccrarq gb gur fheivibef naq Tvqrba'f obql sebz Pnanna Ubhfr?
3.  Jub vf Oybbq bs Rqra naq jung qb gurl jnag?
4.  Jul qbrf fbzrbar (Beghf?) jnag Uneebj qrnq naq vf fbzrbar ernyyl gelvat gb orgenl gur Rzcrebe naq jul?
5.  Jub vf gur aneengbe sbe gur 2aq crefba frpgvbaf?
6.  Jung vf tbvat ba jvgu gur jnecrq cnfg frpgvbaf?

Jr trg fbzr nafjref gb gurfr dhrfgvbaf:  Svefg, Uneebj ybobgbzvmrq urefrys gb fgbc ure obql sebz shyyl vagrtengvat Tvqrba'f fbhy, qrfgeblvat vg nf cneg bs gur cebprff bs orpbzvat n shyy Ylpgbe.  Svar (guvf nyfb nafjref dhrfgvba 5 - gur aneengbe vf Tvqrba bs pbhefr).  Ohg gung whfg yrnirf zber dhrfgvbaf:  Ubj qvq cer-ybobgbzl Uneebj xabj guvf jnf gur pnfr?  Ubj qvq cer-ybobgbzl Uneebj xabj gung fur arrqrq gb uryc Pnzvyyn, gb frny Qrhgrebf' zbhgu orsber fur pbhyq erirny gurer jrer genvgbef, rgp.?  Gur ynggre fhttrfgf Uneebj fnj Oybbq bs Rqra cvpx hc gur obqvrf (naq gung'f pregnvayl cbffvoyr sebz Tvqrba gur Avagu) naq gura gurl gnyxrq gb byq Uneebj gb pbaivapr ure gb uryc....znlor?  Ohg hu, jul (zber ba guvf va n frpbaq) naq jryy gur genvgbef ner gur bgure Ylpgbef jub pyrneyl nera'g jbexvat jvgu Uneebj be Oybbq bs Rqra nalzber.  Naq guvf nyy juvpu zvtug fhttrfg gur ybobgbzl unccrarq orsber fur jnf cvpxrq hc ol gur Rzcrebe sebz Pnanna Ubhfr rkprcg gur rcvybthr sebz TgA unf Uneebj fgvyy xabjvat jub Tvqrba vf?  Ntnva, guvf vf onfvpnyyl gur cevzr dhrfgvba V naq V fhfcrpg zbfg ernqref jnagrq gb unir nafjrerq sebz gur ortvaavat bs guvf obbx, naq jvgu gur nafjre whfg yrnivat zber dhrfgvbaf, vg'f whfg sehfgengvat.

Gur Dhrfgvbaf nobhg Oybbq bs Rqra (#f 2 naq 3) ner fvzvyneyl sehfgengvat naq arire nafjrerq:  Jr unir fbzr vqrn nobhg jung vgf yrnqre gevrq gb qb bapr naq jung ur'f qbvat abj (ur'f gur Fyrrcre naq gur jvryqre bs Plgurern'f obql frrxvat gb xvyy gur Rzcrebe).  Ohg jr unir ab vqrn jung rknpgyl vf uvf bccbfvgvba gb gur Rzcrebe, be arpebznapl, be jung ObR'f pheerag ntraqn npghnyyl vf naq jul vg unf Pnzvyyn naq gur bguref ba gurve fvqr.  Boivbhfyl gurl zhfg ernyyl or gur tbbq thlf (jvgu gur Rzcrebe orvat gur onq thl) ng gur raq, ohg JR QBAG XABJ JUNG GUR FVQRF NER RIRA SVTUGVAT NOBHG jvgu fhpu nafjref whfg qebccrq nsgre Pnzvyyn qvfnccrnef nf dhvpxyl nf fur ernccrnef hagvy gur rcvybthr.  Vafgrnq gur obbx znxrf gur raqvat fbyryl nobhg gur Ylpgbef svtugvat gur Rzcrebe bire uvf yrggvat gurz xvyy sbe tbbq gurve Pninyvref naq uvz abg xvyyvat Nyrpgb, juvpu juvyr vagrerfgvat qbrfa'g nafjre guvf dhrfgvba ng nyy.  Uryy, gur obbx ohvyqf nyy obbx gb n onggyr jvgu gur Erfheerpgvba Ornfg naq gura unf vg ergerng bss cntr va snibe bs nyy bs gur erfg!

Vg'f whfg fb sehfgengvat naq ernyyl gur fnzr guvat TgA qvq cbbeyl - vg qbrfa'g rfgnoyvfu gur jbeyq be gur fgnxrf, cersreevat gb nqq gubfr gb gur bgure zlfgrevrf, naq gur erfhyg vf gung V rvgure qba'g pner be whfg jnag gb lryy orpnhfr gur obbx whfg vfa'g shysvyyvat vgf cebzvfrq ebyr bs tvivat nafjref.  Fb lbh unir na nagntbavfg ohvyg hc nyy obbx (Gur Erfheerpgvba Ornfg) jub gura qvfnccrnef jvgubhg qbvat nalguvat; lbh unir nabgure jubfr vqragvgl naq bowrpgvir vf arire erirnyrq, fb V unir ab ernfba gb pner nobhg gurz; lbh unir cbgragvny vagrerfgvat bgure punenpgref jub cbc hc va gur aneengvir naq gura qvfnccrne jvgubhg QBVAT nalguvat.  Gur obbx pyrneyl jnagf gb or pyrire jvgu ubj vg erfbyirf gur gjb fgbelyvarf ohg ab, lbh'er abg pyrire, lbh'er whfg orvat fhcresvpvny.
Htu.
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