Harrow the Ninth

[cahn]

finally starting to get caught up on writing up my Hugo reading! I hope!

4/5. Well. That was a WILD ride.

-I had managed to osmose beforehand that Harrow was crazier than Gideon the Ninth, and before reading I was all, "how is that even possible?" Heh, I learned how that was possible!

-I also realized during the course of this book that Muir has apparently tapped into some deep and primal urge I have to be... utterly confused?? I spent almost all of the book being completely confused and loving it! though it was because I did trust Muir to clear everything up by the end. I feel like someone's review said that the whole book was like an extended trust fall (sorry, I forget who said that) and... yeah.

-the worldbuilding continues to be a weird blend of "watch how much I absolutely do not care about worldbuilding" and "watch how much I do care about worldbuilding" but bothered me less this time around because I'd had a whole previous book to turn my brain off in this regard

-I live under a rock so the memes didn't bother me, and I loved all the Biblical references!

-heh, I actually did not realize that Harrow had modified her own memory, even though now it seems like it should have been glaringly obvious, mostly because I guess I have spent too much time in fic AUs and was busy postulating alternate universe scenarios

-I am most impressed that Muir got me so into Ortus, which I never would have imagined possible after reading Gideon. And I was so moved by the triumph of bad poetry, which is a sentence that I would not have imagined being able to type non-ironically before reading this book (but I do mean it non-ironically!)

-speaking of Ortus, I spent the first half of the book complaining to ase that it was so annoying that two characters were named Ortus, but I guessed it was just one of those things that happened (HI every historical fandom ever!) and thus totally missed that it was actually a CLEW, well done Muir

-like several other reviews I've read, I just really adore about this book that it cares a lot about every single character, including characters that were seemingly throwaway characters in the previous book (like Ortus!) and has just this deep compassion for everyone

-is Alecto going to be even crazier than this one? Idk but I am so looking forward to the ride! Especially given the reveal that the Emperor assured Harrow she couldn't actually have opened the Locked Tomb because only the Emperor's blood could do that... only that was before we knew that Gideon was the Emperor's kid. Has the Emperor figured this out??

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Well. That was a WILD ride.

Hahaha, that was basically my reaction, too. (I finished it, like, a week and a half ago? And it's still kind of swirling around my brain, even though I've finished two other books after and am in the process of reading two more.)

The trust fall analogy is very apt! After 'Gideon', I definitely did not trust Muir enough for an entire book of trust fall, but I read 'Harrow' heavily spoiled, so it still worked out. And at this point I do think I have enough trust to go into 'Alecto' without intentionally spoiling myself.

-I am most impressed that Muir got me so into Ortus, which I never would have imagined possible after reading Gideon. And I was so moved by the triumph of bad poetry, which is a sentence that I would not have imagined being able to type non-ironically before reading this book (but I do mean it non-ironically!)

Same, on both counts! Triumph of bad poetry FTW!

[cahn]

Heh, after Gideon I trusted Muir enough to know that she was going somewhere with her plots! But also ase had read it before me and liked it, so I also trusted her, haha :) (I don't trust Muir at ALL about her worldbuilding, but I think I understand at this point which things she cares about and which she doesn't, and she is pretty consistent about the things she cares about.)

*fistbump of triumph of bad poetry*

[sophia_sol]

Yay, welcome back to Hugo blogging!

Yes this book sure was a wild ride. And the triumph of bad poetry!! I loved that do much too.

I'm really interested to discover what book three is going to be like. I feel like my opinion of the whyile series is going to depend on whether Muir pulls off an ending I feel works.

[cahn]

:D I did read a bunch of Hugo stuff, it's just that my bucket of time for posting is different (and smaller) than my bucket of time for reading, so hopefully I can get around to it soon!

I think I'm already pretty impressed by certain things about books 1 and 2 (book 1: the sheer scale of the loyalty kink; book 2: that Muir had the nerve to pull it off, wow) but yeah, I'm interested to see whether Muir pulls off the whole thing. I think she can! But whether she will is another question :)

[sophia_sol]

I will look forward to reading more of your thoughts about Hugo books as you have time to post about them!

The thing about these books is that both of them took a long time to actually get me engaged in what was happening, and the second took even longer than the first, so I'm a little afraid that trend is going to continue - but there's enough that I absolutely adore about these books that I am still hopeful she'll write an ending I'm into!

[cahn]

Oh, interesting! Gideon took me a very long time to get me engaged, but Harrow not nearly so long because it got me off-balance almost immediately :) Well, we'll see next year, I guess... :)

[sophia_sol]

So much of Ht9 was the main character drifting through life with no apparent goals or interests -- and like, I understand why and it makes a lot of sense! But it meant I didn't feel any forward momentum from the book; why should I care about what's happening when the viewpoint character doesn't?

[cahn]

Yeah, that's very fair! I was just so confused that trying to figure out what was going on was driving me forward :)

[kore]

I really liked Gideon, but I LOVED Harrow, how meta and twisty it was, and the Triumph of Bad Poetry was one of the best things I've read in SFF in a while. Not quite sure what Alecto's going to be like! but I have a sneaking suspicion Harrow will always be my favourite.

[cahn]

The Triumph of Bad Poetry was flipping amazing and I loved it!

The way Harrow kept me more off-balance than any second book in a trilogy has ever done was just so great. I am not sure which one I prefer, actually -- Gideon has so much loyalty kink, which is so My Thing, but then so is the twistiness of Harrow My Thing.

[kore]

I know! I love locked room mysteries and super Goth space fantasy and Gideon was such a great character, but Harrow REALLY appealed to the fanfic side of me that loves AUs and twists and turning the canon upside down and inside out. And most of the time, second book installments in trilogies are dull! Harrow was a real achievement on a lot of levels.

[cahn]

haha, yes! There was a very "let's engage with this in a fandom kind of way" feel to Harrow that I really liked. (Also about A Deadly Education, if you've read that. It doesn't do the twisty thing as much, but to me it seems very much about interrogating other canon (Harry Potter, dystopian YA, and I am told Transformers as well) from a fandom kind of perspective. Not the same as Harrow at all, really, but it reminded me of Education because both are from a fandom perspective, if from two different types of fandom perspective.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

-I also realized during the course of this book that Muir has apparently tapped into some deep and primal urge I have to be... utterly confused?? I spent almost all of the book being completely confused and loving it!

I see why you like John M. Ford! And conversely, this is why I cannot handle him! ;) I'm okay with knowing I don't know what's going on, a la Piranesi, but I can't be *confused*, or I will nope right out.

[cahn]

Yes, I was thinking about that while reading! Muir and Ford have almost diametrically opposed styles but they do have some distinct commonalities, and that's one of them! (The other is a love of shoehorning in anachronistic references/memes -- it is a direct consequence of Ford slipping in a reference to Star Wars and Tolkien in his Richard III book that I have no trouble with Muir sticking in tumblr memes (although to be fair part of it is also that I don't get most tumblr memes).