A review by flying_monkey
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

If you read my review of the first book in this sequence, and you'd probably be wondering why I read the second one. I can't really explain, other than to say that despite everything I found it original enough that I wanted to to know where the author was going to take things. 

In many ways, this book is very different. First of all, it is not predominantly focused on, or in the voice of, the cavalier, Gideon Nav, the eponymous heroine of the first book. This is a very good thing as Gideon's jarring Instagram teen personality was very, very annoying and not half as funny as the author seemed to believe it was (although I recognise that I am in a minority in feeling this). Instead, we're inside the head of Harrowhark, Gideon's necromancer, which is an altogether more serious and dreadful place. Instead of the boistrous lesbianism of Gideon, Harrow is basically a terminally anxious asexual necrophiliac, albeit one with apparently unprecedented necromantic powers. 

Secondly, the book is not set amongst peers but in the Mithraeum, a space station populated by just seven people, one of whom is (mostly) dead, and another is 'God', at least the god of this region of space, and the man (real name, err... John) responsible for the resurrection of humanity and its current state in the books. All of the others, including Harrow and the only other apparent survivor from the first book, Ianthe, are 'lyctors', John's personal guard and generals. The other three are 10,000 years old and about as cranky as you'd expect at that age. 

Third, nothing that happened in the first book seems to have been real. At least Harrow remembers an entirely different series of events with a different companion. Gideon simply no longer exists for her, if she ever did. This reworked account of the events of the first book is interwoven with developments on the Mithraeum, in a way that isn't as confusing as some reviewers seem to think. 

Finally, at least until the final quarter, this book is a lot slower, gloomier and for long stretches, more boring than the first book. It takes a long time to start developing anything that might be called 'plot' and then everything comes in a confusing jumble of revelations and action in that last quarter. In that sense, the book was poorly paced compared to the first. And I wasn't sure that any of the new characters (John and the lyctors) were actually in any way interesting, again, at least until the end. 

In many ways, this is a typical second volume of a trilogy, treading water before the set-up for the final book. That finale does indeed set things up for a revelatory final volume, and yes, I will read it, despite still thinking this really isn't written for me.