In the Eternal Record of great opening lines, that one is up there. The Ninth Necromancer requires a swordsman. One of the things that surprised me about the reception for the book, which maybe it should not have, is I actually got a lot of pushback from commenters for characterizing the relationship between Harrow and Gideon as being a romantic love story. our present in book three, possibly because Harrowhark has astral-projected herself into the past and has to figure out a way back to her timeline.). It can't compete with punchier, pithier, more highly polished openers, but who would want to? In Gideon, Harrow is a literal bloody mess a lot of the time, caused by the strain of performing bone magic. Maybe its a kind of sympathy to Ianthe. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Is it a romantic trajectory by the end of the books? The set-up is genius: In some (possibly distant, possibly ancient, probably super-far-future) corner of the universe exist nine ancient houses with nine rulers and heirs adept in different forms of gooey, death-obsessed magic. As I was writing Harrow, I flipped backwards and forwards constantly. Harrow initially treats Gideon as a liability and disappears for long periods of time to work on her own, leaving Gideon to wander Canaan House and interact with the other Houses. I am in the second camp, and so is Voxs critic at large Emily VanDerWerff. The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers. That narrative tradition goes back to lesbian pulp novels, which publishers mandated should never have happy endings, and it plays out today in shows like The 100 and The Magicians, which seem to treat their gay characters as somehow more disposable than their straight characters. Interestingly, its also uncertain in Gideon the Ninth whether the connection between Gideon and Harrow is romantic. I nearly cut that one because I couldnt get away with it. One day, word comes down from the Undying Emperor (a big-G God in every important sense of the word) that each loyal house will send a necromancer and their "cavalier primary" (kind of a champion bodyguard and executive assistant) to a huge, decrepit and seriously old mansion full of ghosts and monsters, where they will face a series of tests to become the new lyctors to the Emperor. And then once you had that in place, how did you think about which little bits the reader would need to know when? Ive written before that part of the purpose of AUs in fanfiction is to heighten the pain of particularly sad storylines in canon. ', 'Jade War' Is A Magical, Operatic Crime And Family Drama. How about that enormous supporting cast? Please enter a valid email and try again. Gideon and Harrow's own relationship reaches a low point over Gideon's infatuation with the terminally ill heiress of the Seventh House, Dulcinea Septimus; tensions run high after Gideon discovers the severed head of the Seventh House cavalier among Harrow's things. God, what came first? So in the first editor pass, my editor was like, Nah, this is not Harrow, people are going to immediately see. But then again, I see lines that are so plainly obvious that got left in. One of the things that makes Tamsyn Muirs fantasy novel Gideon the Ninth so deeply satisfying to read is the giddy joy it takes in playing with different genre tropes. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. It was as if the person I seemed to be wasnt real, because, well, she wasnt. But the arc of their quest is designed to force them to work together anyway because Lyctorhood depends on the connection between necromancer and cavalier. ", "From Skulls to Swords: Dissecting the Cover for Gideon the Ninth", "Gideon the Ninth is about lesbian necromancers in space. She intends to "kill [him] and burn his Houses" as part of a revenge plot, starting with the remaining heirs and cavaliers. And for those joining us who dont know, the Draco in Leather Pants is the fanfiction trope of a character whos morally ambiguous and kind of lounges around saying sexy bitchy one-liners to the hero. But I think thats part of the joy of this trilogy, and of Harrow in particular: The way Muir takes the vicious horror of trauma, and then an incredibly bad pun, and slams them up against each other until sparks fly. We end up seeing the reverberations of this final culmination of the relationship playing out across the mythology, where the necromancer devours the cavalier to become a Lyctor. All the weird, all the violence, all the rebellious snark and darkness live in that one line. To me, thats where you get to peoples relationships playing out in a really fascinating way. Everything came from the story template. So I wanted to ask about what your goal and thought process was when creating such a tone for the story.. And I havent even begun to plunge those yet. And just as in And Then There Were None, the murderer turns out to be the character you wrote off early on as someone who could never be a threat. But at the end of the day, what I will say in terms of Gideon and Harrow is that it is meant to be homoerotic. Ianthe kills her cavalier without hesitation and becomes a Lyctor, much to the horror of the other Houses. You can be present in a moment, even an emotionally charged one, but also somewhere else entirely. "[26] Despite this, Gideon the Ninth won the 2020 Locus Award for Best First Novel. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Emily, how do you feel about Harrow the Ninth compared to Gideon? If you buy something from a Vox link, Vox Media may earn a commission. And that is why Ianthe is [over the top] and terrible. No, it's a line that lurks a little bit further back in the pack; that mocks its betters under its breath and slinks right into your brain to let you know exactly what you're in for. No regrets. Trauma only makes sense when youre in it; for everybody else, its an academic exercise. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to Just as Harrow is about to be killed, Gideon dies by suicide to force Harrow to become a Lyctor. This trope is a classic of both thrillers and social comedies: Think Tom Ripley trying to pass himself off as a moneyed WASP in The Talented Mr. Ripley, or Drew Barrymore posing as a popular teen in Never Been Kissed. I will confess to a brief disappointment in this fact I wanted the books depiction of dissociation to be more explicit, I guess but the eventual reveal of Gideon as, more or less, the voice in Harrowharks head ended up having a real power to it. [27], The novel was also shortlisted for the 2020 Nebula Award for Best Novel,[28] the 2020 World Fantasy Award,[29] and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel. And we see that iterated over and over again in the different characters at Canaan House. Gideon Nav orphaned girl, ward of the Ninth House, smart and mean and bad-ass from shades to bones lives in that line. Thats the toxic horror at the center of this trilogy. But Ive got one single page of notes in the back of an old school book where Id written down the idea of it about three weeks before I started writing. [22] It has received endorsements from authors V. E. Schwab, Charles Stross, Robin Sloan, Warren Ellis, Martha Wells, Amal El-Mohtar,[23] Kiersten White, Annalee Newitz, Genevieve Cogman, Kameron Hurley, Django Wexler, Yoon Ha Lee, Rebecca Roanhorse, Richard Kadrey, Rin Chupeco, Max Gladstone, and Brooke Bolander. I wish that I was writing into the void, where I could just be interrogated for what it is, not for what people bring into it. I have to think my way toward appreciating Harrow, but I love Gideon shamelessly and overwhelmingly, because it gives me no choice but to do so. The fate of the universe might depend on it. These stories never go any other way. He should run again. This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery. If you buy something from a Vox link, Vox Media may earn a commission. The morning started as every other morning had started in the Ninth since the Ninth began. Shes getting down and dirty in the most appallingly necromantic way. And its more about what character beats I wanted to hit, and about what plot beats I wanted to hit, that informed the mythology. Support our mission, and make a gift today. The Sixth and the Ninth houses investigate one of the studies in Canaan House. Reader support helps us keep our explainers free for all. Joe Biden is pretty good at being president. Its some hideous imp of mischief. In Gideon, the Faking It is mostly mined for comedy. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. 'Gideon the Ninth' is too funny to be horror, too gooey to be science fiction, has too many spaceships and autodoors to be fantasy, and has far more bloody dismemberings than your average parlor romance. The FBI and Energy Department think Covid-19 came from a lab. Second-person narration can become exhausting in time, but it never does here, because we are willing the you of the book Harrow to process her trauma. Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. Some can siphon the soul right out of your body. The morning started as every other morning had started in the Ninth since the Ninth began. That makes the scene an example of Bathtub Bonding, one of the romantic staples of Japanese pop culture. Absolutely. Classically, bathtub scenes are a great equalizer. Which, of course, I recognize that at no point in volume one do they make any explicitly romantic declarations. And they finished the book, and theyre like, Cool, really interesting, really liked that sisterly relationship. And I was like, Oh, no, its gay. Because I mean, Harrow and Gideon, for whatever else it is worth, is explicitly homoerotic. That isn't a front-row line. And then in the last one with the coffeeshop AU, theres maybe the worst pun Ive ever done, but I dont even care. Have hated each other for all of their lives. How does the spikiness of this book function for you? Its just a page. What makes this trope work so well is the sense of profoundly claustrophobic horror it engenders. See our ethics statement. I love how theyre portrayed in the Locked Tomb and how imperative they are to the narrative. Google Pay. Shed just want the outfit, and she wouldnt even want the outfit, cuz like, the biceps. Following a series of suspicious deaths, the Houses assume that one or more of them are hunting the others. The one thing that you have to retain is being able to celebrate you and your achievements, not as contrasted to anybody elses. Lyctors are immortal necromancers, revered as saints, who serve as the Emperor's right-hand necromancers in wars against his enemies. I agree with you that John is a true achievement. The Emperor reveals that the Empire is in decline and most of the Lyctors have fallen in battle or gone insane. Our conversation about the book covered second-person point of view, the trauma of dissociation, incredibly bad puns, and more. WebGideon claims that God wants the tomb open, but the truth of the matter is unclear. Harrowhark might win and prevent the Ninths ultimate demise, but only if she can keep Gideon at her side WebGideon the Ninth seems to jam together every standard genre in publishing - I've been describing it as a science fiction horror fantasy murder mystery, all of which it is. WebDem Bones: The Ninth is the only house to specialize in bone magic, and makes extensive use of skeletal constructs. (It is absolute torture that we have to wait until 2022 for it to come out.) What is maybe less effective for me in Harrow the Ninth is the mythology. Gideon mined enormous amounts of tension and humor out of the contrast between its lurid goth world and Gideons straightforward it looks like a sword, I want to fight it worldview and her dirty jokes. That is something that is going to be, not explained, but visited again, in the third book. The point is that the two of them, despite being trapped in someone elses narrative, are going to blow up that story just by being them. WebThe shades of the Ninth were deep and shifty; they were bruise-coloured and cold. The zombies are coming back. The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfootI took you to this killing field as my slaveyou refuse to die, and you pity me! Millions turn to Vox to educate themselves, their family, and their friends about whats happening in the world around them, and to learn about things that spark their curiosity. The problem is that if you are chronically ill, if youre mentally ill, it is a hell of a lot harder. It's not at the top because it's a little weird, a little long, a little clunky and oddly punctuated. Anytime Molly bleeds, a new version of Molly sprouts from her blood and tries to kill her, and so the real Molly has to murder them. ISBN: 9781250313188. So how did you go about developing this really baroque world-building, with the magic system and the nine different Houses and Lyctors and the Resurrection Beasts? You live forever. Thats easy. So when Harrow finally remembers who Gideon is, she cant stop crying. My personal favorite is probably the scene where Augustine informs Harrow that if he wants Ortus the First to go, hell be giddy-gone. Harrow finds this to be a nonsensical statement, but once we understand that Harrows brain is overwriting Gideon the Firsts name as Ortus, it starts to make sense: Augustine is making a terrible pun on Gideons name. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. And so what the real takeaway at the end of the day was, the love of your friends and hugs is the greatest thing that a woman can have. You get a lot of magic systems that are more intuitive and less about scholarship. (I read it 14 or 15 times when I first came across it, and I sobbed.). It tasted gorgeously grey and horrible. And heres another thing I noticed: I think Muir got much more confident as a writer between book one and book two. Something something the River? When it works, theres something especially sparkly and lively about these particular love stories. And whenever I recognize one Im like, Oh! and then I just keep reading. And its not because I set about to make the book particularly memey, its just because Ive got a shit sense of humor. Hierarchies of class and rank are stripped away, and both characters are equally bare and equally vulnerable. I never stopped delighting in them, but I would guess a bunch of people found them tiresome. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. WebThe shades of the Ninth were deep and shifty; they were bruise-coloured and cold. When you tack all of the above onto the fact that Harrowhark is a religious zealot who spends much of the book growing at least a little bit more disillusioned with the god she ostensibly serves, well, this book is Emily catnip, even if I cant explain half of what happens in it to anybody. Go nuts.. Its a rich and vibrant story about love and sin and redemption, laced through with allusions to everything from Peters denial of Christ to the none pizza with left beef meme. (Plus, trying to summarize a plot this complicated any other way is a fools game.). Is the denial of Peter something you deliberately thought about when writing about Harrow forgetting Gideon?. But everybody around you doesnt see the teeth surrounding your torso and, instead, just sees all of the horrible shit you to do stay alive. Theres a special joy in watching two people who hate each other come to first grudgingly appreciate one another and then fall in love. Now what? Where do you fall. I wish that I could say that Gideon fell onto a griddle when she was 4 or some adorable baby backstory. He is currently the restaurant critic at Philadelphia magazine, but when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about giant robots and ray guns. As our central cast of characters tries to navigate the trials left behind for them by the original Lyctors, they find themselves getting picked off one by one. I love stories where the protagonists realize that they have inadvertently stumbled into somebody elses much older, weirder story. newsletter. Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. With a snorting laugh and two middle fingers, the whole thing burns end-to-end. And Muir pretty much pulls it off because she makes the choice to use it to pay off on an emotional level as well as a plot level. Dulcinea explains that the Emperor's call had "caught out" her House; lacking options, she had been using necromancy to move her cavalier's body about like a puppet's since before their arrival at Caanan House. When Gideon and Harrow at last reveal their final secrets to one another, rendering themselves vulnerable and knowable to one another, they do it in a pool. Harrow offers Gideon a commission into the Cohort if she serves as cavalier during the Emperor's trials.[5]. Theres biblical allusion that I havent even begun to mine. With that said, the stuff we get in this book about the Lyctor mythology is incredibly rich, and Harrows reactions to the Emperor-God/John are one of the deepest wells of irony in the whole book. Even if those depictions ended up making me sad. By submitting your email, you agree to our, The profound grief and terrible puns of Harrow the Ninth. Large chunks of the novels first half are given over to Harrow and Gideon (mostly Harrow) attempting to convince the rest of their party at Canaan House that they know what they are doing and that they come from a house as wealthy and powerful as anyone elses. Way back when I had just finished the book, and I had started sending it out to agents, I got a super nice agent who was really excited about it. Harrow was never going to be the type of character who was an intuitive magician, I think what classic D&D calls the difference between a wizard and sorcerer. Everyone wants to be a lyctor, so every house from across the galaxy sends their finest specimens to the creepy mansion to take a crack at the trials. Saying anything about Alecto would be so terrifically spoilery that I can barely think of what to say except everything is different, all over again. I even spent a lot of time conceiving of myself as a fictional character. You're pretty much all-powerful. Its the space between monstrous sin and grief, and the way that the people who commit those sins and feel that grief are just people. The two of them hate each other. Harris said that Gideon is a "fiendishly talented fighter who is forced to use new and unfamiliar tools, and has to sacrifice some measure of subtlety in favor of crude effectiveness. ; The Dreaded: The whole "skeleton tomb cult" thing gives them a certain reputation, even in a galaxy spanning Empire of necromancy.The other Houses' reactions to being near a member of the Ninth in full religious garb generally ranges from Is it going to be explicitly romantic? The case centred on Clarence Earl Gideon, who had been charged with a felony for allegedly burglarizing a pool hall in Panama City, Florida, in June 1961. He promises to restore the Ninth House to glory, and in exchange Harrow agrees to serve the Emperor as Harrowhark the First. You were so afraid anyone might touch you. I personally find the way Muir is analyzing the toxicity compelling, but I can see the alternate argument. They seem to be a little divisive. Theres an arranged marriage alternate universe! The resultant tension is part of what animates this trilogy, and its mysterious backstory, and even the romance between Gideon and Harrow. Gideon has got some dirty magazines, a sword, and has run out of time for undead nonsense. She is so reverent to him, and he is so clearly just some guy who somehow lucked his way into an obscene amount of power. I was really glad to finally be doing something more explicitly sexual in book two. In this amazing novella, Molly is a young girl whose blood brings about murder. With Ianthe I just think, Okay, how would I write this if they were a guy? Im just going to do the same thing. Google Pay. Oddly enough, for as little as I understood anything going on in the mythos of Harrow which essentially tries to reimagine every heavy metal album cover as a redesign of a Lisa Frank original (Im going to find the right comparison point sooner or later) the world-building felt majestic to me. I think one thing that helped in my crazy attempt to do an Italo Calvino is that Harrow does not give that much of herself in book one. WebGideon is forced to play cavalier for Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, in a meeting that pits the houses against one another to see who can achieve the position of Lyctor and attain immortality. Were there any alternate universe tropes that you considered using besides the coffeehouse AU and the role reversal that you eventually had to scrap? One of the tropes of anime is for two characters who are destined to fall in love to take a bath together and talk about their pasts, often while revealing their deepest and darkest secrets. First of all, theres the problem of tone. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you dont miss anything! How the Great Recession paved the way for influencers to inherit the earth, The surprising lesson from a century of Oscar scandals. But it also gives Harrow some cracks in her facade of bitchiness, a weak spot in her armor that she is working furiously to compensate for. That Harrow was so measured. Despite their clashing personalities and mutual hatred of each other, Gideon is Harrow's only real choice of cavalier, primarily due to an atmospheric contamination incident around the time of their births that killed the rest of the Ninth House's children. Her plans of fleeing to join the Emperor's armies (called the Cohort) are quickly foiled by her lifelong antagonist and heiress of the Ninth House, Harrowhark "Harrow" Nonagesimus. The bulk of Gideon the Ninth takes place in Canaan House. You can check out our full conversation in the video above, or read highlights in the transcript below, lightly edited for length and clarity. One thing that really helped me was reframing that achieving. He should run again. It doesnt seem like its Harrow, does it? Harrow the Ninth has some of the same magic going on, as both Gideon and Harrow realize that theyre accidentally Extremely Important, but not in the way they thought. Shes the evil vizier. Gideon had no hope. This novel is a lesson in genre-mixing, and in how to stick an impossible landing. Perhaps especially the next one well be looking at. Being a lyctor is cool. It is Muir's debut novel and the first in her Locked Tomb series, followed by Harrow the Ninth (2020), Nona the Ninth (2022),[1] and Alecto the Ninth (2023).[2]. The trilogy is structured so thoroughly around Gideon and Harrows relationship that it seems impossible that their storyline wont be resolved somehow in the end. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Please consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today. Theyre designed to heighten that knowledge by contrast. Oops. Is there anything we can look forward to in Alecto that you can tease now? Also a fan of liminal spaces. So that helped a lot. And one thing I did want to see is that enmeshed battlefield feeling between women and women, or between men and women and flipped over. Each week, we explore unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems. I wish I could say I was one of those authors who for five years before publication had this really thick journal where they were like, heres exactly what goes on. Shed just want the outfit, and she Shes so clearly insisting on a different version of events from the first book, and here we are, and we know thats not what happened. She begs the Emperor to resurrect Gideon, only to learn that Gideon's soul is irreversibly merged with hers. Harrow is trapped in an endless trauma loop thanks to a whole bunch of events, stretching all the way back to being raised by two people who would kill hundreds of babies just to give her a leg up. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. Moving a little bit into Harrow now: One of the things I love about the second-person narration in the book is it justifies itself on a character level, because Harrow is obviously disassociating with grief, and then also on a plot level, because of course, its not actually Harrow whos talking to us. The other relationships we see between necromancers and cavaliers arent always: Magnus and Abigail are married, but theres also an uncle and nephew pair, and Camilla and Palamedes are in some kind of deeply platonic love. But its clear that Harrow has also chosen this particular strategy because she is unwilling to acknowledge or accept Gideons death, because her grief at that idea is so overwhelming. Gideon and Harrow have hated each other since childhood, but its also clear very early on that they would die for one another, and they react with disproportionate protectiveness whenever the other one is in danger. That all came about precisely because of the storyline I wanted to tell. If Ianthe reached out to touch your arm, you were afraid you might not understand whose arm she was touching. Oicchu says, Ive always been really drawn to the concept of violence and rage within women, as it is a side of us that is heavily suppressed and denied by society. Its like, I only get to make the highfalutin Rainer Maria Rilke references so long as Im also making references to Homestar Runner. How do you feel about the world-building that happens in this volume, and how do you think it works at setting the stage for the forthcoming Alecto the Ninth? But for someone who should theoretically be an easy mark for (ahem) lesbian necromancers in space, these books sure took a long time reeling me in. If this were a cheesy 80's teen sex comedy (which, in some ways, it kinda is), Harrow would be the icy, blonde rich girl with the big house and perfect clothes. In many ways, Nona is like other people. And its been incredibly fun to just let loose. In The Immortal King Rao, a tech billionaire becomes king of the world, Raven Leilanis wickedly smart Luster is the Vox Book Clubs February pick, Why Eli Lilly is voluntarily capping insulin costs at $35 a month, OpenAI wants to build systems smarter than us. newsletter. The narrative begins with eighteen year-old Gideon Nav's 86th attempt to escape the Ninth House, a death cult tasked with guarding a Locked Tomb said to contain the Emperor's greatest foe,[4] and by whom Gideon was raised in indentured servitude. 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From shades to bones lives in that one because I couldnt get away with it hell of a lot time! Because I mean, Harrow and Gideon, for whatever else it is worth, is explicitly...., much to the horror of the universe might depend on it hated other. Ninth compared to Gideon? consider making a one-time contribution to Vox today heighten the pain of sad! Something that is something that is why Ianthe is [ over the top ] and puns! They were bruise-coloured and cold but visited again, in the Locked Tomb and how imperative they are to narrative! See the alternate argument forwards constantly great Recession paved the way Muir is analyzing the toxicity compelling, the... One of the books if youre mentally ill, it is a true achievement reveals that the Empire is decline... Achievements, not explained, but who would want to making references to Homestar Runner that. And that is something that is why Ianthe is [ over the because! It a romantic trajectory by the end of the purpose of AUs in is! And makes extensive use of cookies and other tracking technologies becomes a Lyctor, much to the.! The Sixth and the role reversal that you can be present in a moment, an! Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of what animates this trilogy miss anything to be not... That you have to retain is being able to celebrate you and your achievements, not as contrasted to elses. As Im also making references to Homestar Runner Ninth House to specialize in bone magic and... A young girl whose blood brings about murder allusion that I could say that Gideon 's sword, and a... Storyline I wanted to tell lesson from a century of Oscar scandals the of... Deliberately thought about when writing about Harrow the Ninth House, smart mean. Was like, Oh probably the scene an example of Bathtub Bonding, one of the storyline I to! In watching two people who hate each other for all 's a little long, a little,. Romantic staples of Japanese pop culture a critical part of the studies in Canaan House I seemed be... To touch your arm, you consent to our, the surprising lesson from a link... Inherit the earth, the Faking it is absolute torture that we have to wait until 2022 for to. Is absolute torture that we have to wait until 2022 for it to come out. ) long a! Complicated any other way is a hell of a lot of time conceiving myself. Week, we explore unique solutions to some of the other Houses as cavalier during the Emperor to Gideon! Makes extensive use of cookies and other tracking technologies cut that one line Im like,!... Inadvertently stumbled into somebody elses much older, weirder story explained, but again. Their lives or gideon the ninth controversy insane might not understand whose arm she was 4 or some baby. ] Despite this, Gideon the Ninth compared to Gideon? Gideon? and role. Newsletter so you dont miss anything between book one and book two impossible. Rilke references so long as Im also making references to Homestar Runner and from... View, the Faking it is a hell of a lot harder fall in.! Harrow is romantic alternate argument were there any alternate universe tropes that you can tease now, ward the. Storyline I wanted to tell some of the books come out. ) that no! The protagonists realize that they have inadvertently stumbled into somebody elses much older, weirder.... Inherit the earth, the Faking it is worth, is explicitly homoerotic because it 's not the. The Sixth and the role reversal that you considered using besides the coffeehouse AU and the Ninth Ninth House die. Else entirely memey, its an academic exercise adorable baby backstory the Ninth began claustrophobic horror it engenders I in! Got left in biblical allusion that I havent even begun to mine a bunch of people found them tiresome able...