Harrow The Ninth – Sure, Ok, Yeah

God, it’s like assembling a fusion reactor without a manual. I am honestly surprised at my perceived commercial success of Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series. Not that it is bad in any way – in fact, we gave book one a stellar review and listed the series as one of our top Science Fantasy books of all time. It’s just that these books are so confusing that you will literally never understand what is happening, which is usually a huge turn off for most readers. I am pleasantly surprised that the general public has collectively decided these books are worth the time and effort.

So, Harrow The Ninth, the second book in the series, is coming out soon. You might be sitting on your couch right now, browsing this review on your phone, and thinking “oh a Harrow review, maybe he will say the books get less confusing.” Well reader, no, unfortunately, I cannot say that because I don’t understand half the plot, and the other half I do understand is basically all spoilers. And yet, I absolutely do recommend this stellar second installment of the series. This puts me in an awkward position because I usually use the plot and story as the foundation of why I like a book like Harrow the Ninth. Thus, much like The Locked Tomb’s storytelling, this review is going to be a little unorthodox.

So what can I tell you? Well, Harrow the Ninth picks up our story shortly after the end of book one from the perspective of the other half of the delectorable duo of Gideon and Harrow. If you are completely new to this series, in Gideon the Ninth our duo represents a tag team of warrior/bodyguard (Gideon) and space necromancer (Harrow) competing in a strange unorthodox game of sorts and told from the POV of Gideon.

In the second book, Harrow the Ninth, Harrow is the frontliner and it leads me to my next profoundly gushy thought about this series. Tamsyn Muir somehow manages to completely change her narrative style and structure when flipping from the POV of Gideon to Harrow, and yet both styles have extremely excellent prose. This prose and style shift is immensely helpful in setting up a different tense and thick atmosphere in Harrow the Ninth and gives the books distinct flavors. It reminded me of my The Black Company, by Glen Cook, and if you have read my large thought piece on the series, you will know that is a good thing.

Harrow the Ninth is split into two narratives because Harrow essentially lobotomizes herself at the start of book for… reasons. This metaphorical icepick to the brain is a key factor in how Muir completely alters her prose to evoke Harrow’s POV. Half the story is a strange heavily changed retelling of book one, and the other half is Harrow trying to piece her mind back together post lobotomy. This means that Harrow is doing one of two things to the reader at all times: 1) actively lying about how events happened or 2) being so confused about what is going on that she might as well be lying. Harrow might win the award for the single most unreliable narrator in the world, and it’s amazing. See, Harrow the Ninth is less about telling a coherent narrative and much more about watching a character claw her way back to sanity – and at this, it succeeds magnificently.

Without a clear plot to coherently grasp, I feel like there was a lot of pressure on the characters and world to grab the reader hard. Luckily, both of these aspects of Harrow are phenomenal. The magic in The Locked Tomb continues to be the only series that uses necromancy as its main magic in a cool and innovative way. The blend of fantasy and science fiction is delightful and otherworldly. While I may still be very confused as to what is happening in the plot, book two does a lot to better at fleshing out the magic and technology of the world and puts a ton of cool new tools in the reader’s hands. The characters are also unsurprisingly phenomenal. Harrow is an all-star, and I actually think I like her more than Gideon. Gideon was complicated, amusing, and fun as a protagonist – but Harrow has uncharted depths that I just want to dive into. The supporting cast also continues to be a small set of well fleshed out foils. This book has a lot going for it.

However, I did have one small complaint about Harrow the Ninth that knocked it from getting a perfect score from me. As I mentioned before, a large portion of the narrative is devoted to an altered retelling of book one that has had a ton of facts changed due to Harrow’s brain damage. In the end, I very much understand why Muir added these sections to the story, but I feel that there was too much page space devoted to them. They add very specific elements to the atmosphere and character growth, but I don’t think they needed roughly 30-40% of the page space to do it, and some of the sections can drag. I definitely got the feeling of “why am I rereading this again” a few times.

Harrow the Ninth is a stunning, impressive sequel that beat all my expectations. The shift in voice and tone between books one and two shows that Muir is a very powerful and mechanically gifted writer, while the excellent worldbuilding and character writing shows she has boundless creativity. Unless the third part of this trilogy profoundly screws the pooch, I believe The Locked Tomb will be one of the best series in recent memory. If you aren’t reading these books, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Rating: Harrow the Ninth – 9.5/10
-Andrew