The Locked Tomb (also known as lesbian necromancers IN SPACE, also known as Shakespeare with more bones and more gay)

Well, shit.

On the plus side, you will cry out in triumph when you realize exactly how and why the book is gaslighting you.

I gotta admit, the second person narration really adds to this being a cerebral story.

You think One Million Moms ever came or will ever come after this series?

Gotta love that ending to book one.

If they do I feel like there's enough baked into the very concept of the story that they would have trouble choosing just one thing to screech about.

I thought they've been quiet the past few years. Or have we just gotten better at ignoring them?

Yeah between the second person narration, the anachronistic order, and the whole alternate universe stuff, this book is a mind screw.

And then you spend most of book three trying to figure out what the ever loving fuck happened between it and book two because your sole POV has absolutely no context to assist

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

The third book is my favourite, all though meta textually it's quite difficult, the story contained within the book is emotionally really engaging and will happily let you put the complicated questions aside.

No. But it does make for a rather... unique reading experience.

Having finished the second book a while ago, I was pretty confused at how upset Gideon got with Ianthe for saving the king, basically chewing her out for not dooming practically everyone in the Nine Houses. While I get the decision from a in-universe perspective, from a plot perspective it basically ruined the ending to me. Literally the entire book was leading up to the emperor's assassination, and then the assassination fails to do literally anything besides killing the three lyctors (who never interacted with the outside world and who none of the surviving cast cared about). The emperor is completely unscathed. The Nine Houses are in the exact same position that they were in at the start of the book. The blurb for the third book basically gives away the twist that Harrow is alive but with amnesia and Gideon hidden inside of her, which is literally what the entire second book was about, so literally nothing has changed for the protagonists. And it seems like the main plot will be about Harrow not knowing what's going on around her or that gideon is still inside her, literally just repeating the plot of the second book again. I've heard people say that they found Harrow the Ninth to be a slog until the ending, but for me it was the opposite. I was invested enough to read through the vague and slow parts of this book, but then the ending just killed my momentum. This is probably why I still haven't started on Nona the Ninth yet.

Another thing that bugged me is that it seems Dulcinea got her soul obliterated in the dream bubble simply because she kept playing coy and beating around the bushes instead of just getting to the fucking point in a literal life or death situation, which is just infuriating in how forced and unnecessary it feels.

For what it's worth, not everything you've said or assumed is accurate, so if that's holding you back from Nona, don't worry.

Halfway through Harrow. At the point where she’s met the other Canan House survivors that went missing.

Now I’m well past the fight with the Sleeper.

So…Pyrra was using her Gideon’s body to have an affair… while the original Gideon was still in the body…

And DONE! I start Nona in the next few days, and then comes the agonizing wait for Alecto.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Feb 17th 2024 at 10:36:42 AM

I'm just over halfway through with Gideon, but in really enjoying this. The characters are so delightful and I'm getting more and more engaged with the mystery!

It took me awhile to get used to the prose: Tamsyn Miur's voice is different from what I'm used to. But it grew on me and now I think it's great.

Edit: ISAAC! JEANNEMARY! NO!

Edited by SilentColossus on Feb 22nd 2024 at 3:35:12 PM

Who do you think the killer is?

Don't make me embarass myself, I'm not good at mysteries!

Almost done with Nona… Yeah this girl is a cow’s soul in a human body.

The pool scene where Harrow confesses her dependency on Gideon hit me like a fucking arrow, in the fucking heart. But seeing Gideon finally accept Harrow, and even hug her, hit me like a truck. In a good way.

I'm hopefully going to finish Gideon tonight or tomorrow.

Edited by SilentColossus on Feb 23rd 2024 at 6:40:16 AM

Some funny fanart I found on Tumblr: https://pin.it/3sgN62cDH

I finished Gideon.

I wonder how much foreshadowing and hints I had completely missed about Dulcinea.

Gideon sacrificing herself for Harrow, so she could become a Lyctor, was a nice ending, if a very bittersweet one.

Looking forward to Harrow!

Let me give you a heads up: Harrow is going to gaslight you and gaslight you HARD. Just stick with it and it will all make sense by the end.

Does it count as gaslighting the reader if Harrow is gaslighting herself via brain damage?

Okay, I see what you mean about Harrow "gaslighting" the audience. So far, I'm loving it.

The Broken Earth trilogy (by NK Jemisin) also gave me a love for a second-person perspective, and I think Tamysn Mur uses it very well here.

Harrow remains my favorite, but out of the new cast, I enjoy the Emperor and Mercy, and the dynamic between the the two.

Edited by SilentColossus on Feb 26th 2024 at 12:51:10 PM

I finished Nona… I GOTTA KNOW HOW THIS ENDS.