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language: English
country: Aotearoa
year: 2020
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction, fantasy
series: The Locked Tomb, #2
dates read: 2.10.20-4.10.20, 19.11.21-22.11.21, 28.9.22-2.10.22
I finished the Harrow the Ninth audiobook in the wee hours this morning. it’s one of the few books you could write that is more perfectly and specifically tailored to my interests than Gideon the Ninth — it takes what was already a winning formula and adds second person (my beloved), Ortus Nigenad (tragic figure of all time), weird embodiment stuff, …
on (now) third reading a lot of things have fallen into place that I definitely didn’t notice on first reading and still didn’t register on rereading. some of this is also because I’ve seen some Nona spoilers, but some of it is like. ohhhhhhhh obviously. whatever else you might say about Muir’s writing, she’s very good at actually providing you with all the information, but in ways that do not make sense until after The Big Reveal, at which point you go, “oh, my god, she literally told us that on page 10, we just couldn’t see it yet”. it’s an impressive skill. she also paces world-building information very well — it feels to me like Yoon Ha Lee, in that you’re always conscious that there’s so much more, and you really want to know all of the so much more, but the book paces its reveals just right to keep you satisfied-enough while still craving the fullness of that information.
stylistically this was an improvement over Gideon the Ninth — less repetition, and it (mostly) avoided the diction of Princess Floralinda that I was finding kind of annoying; at the very least, it did not sound like a tumblr post from 2014, memes notwithstanding.
memes-wise, I feel much more positively about the memes when they’re coming from ten-thousand-year-old Lyctors and from God, because they were there, but I absolutely hate [REDACTED]’s “Jail for mother!” it wasn’t even a particularly natural-feeling use of it! like when Harrow in Gideon the Ninth does the “she studied the blade” one it at least sounds like something Harrow might reasonably be expected to say, but the idea that Patricia Lockwood’s tweet is what comes out of [REDACTED]’s mouth 10,000-odd years from now was just so incredibly forced.
I still think that the memes and general timefulness of the books are such that they will not stand the test of time, but I’m ready to be proven wrong by Nona.
final note: yes, he is an immortal space dictator who may be responsible for the deaths of ten billion people, but you sure can see why they all love God. I can, anyway.
moods: dark, funny, mysterious, tense