Potentially unpopular opinion ahead: I did not especially like Harrow the Ninth. I loved Gideon the Ninth, but I don’t think all the narrative experimenting and the pacing worked out well here. After Harrow becomes a Lyctor and Gideon is gone, about 85 percent of the Harrow the Ninth is confusion. The narrative switches between second and third person (there’s also some first person but that is mostly later) and neither voice really knows what’s going on; on the one hand, this makes sense because Harrow herself is convinced that she lost her mind, first as a 10-year-old and again/even further in the process of becoming a Lyctor. On the other hand, there’s nearly 300 pages of meandering, both through space doing something called killing planets which somehow results in these horrific space monsters that are chasing the Lyctors and their boss God/Emperor, and Harrow trying to sort herself out (really a disservice to the character). This was a slog to read, both in terms of style and story. The partial reveal, when Harrow figures out what’s going on, at least in terms of the second going crazy (sort of), then the plot actually starts moving. There’s really three things going on; there’s the space monsters (Beasts) and the other Lyctors, some of whom are very very old, there’s what happened to Harrow, and there’s the big secret involving God and some potentially missing and/or not dead but should be bodies, which might actually also be related to something Harrow and we learn about Gideon’s past.
The world building is a really the only thing interesting until the plot starts. The space part gets a lot more attention, and there’s a lot more history of the universe as Harrow knew/knows it. There’s some reveals about that history, and some of this is a surprise to more than just Harrow. There are also some interesting hints about how death and life works in this universe, which also allows for the return of some characters from the first novel (sort of at least).
Then there’s the conclusion; there’s multiple cliff-hangers; the one involving Ianthe annoys me a lot. Granted, her position as the mostly antagonistic jerk figure from the previous novel continues, and her final actions of the novel revert to that. The annoying thing is Ianthe was sort of showing a little depth, and this erases that. The other annoying thing is the other individual involved; I’d hoped they were done for, but are now virtually guaranteed to show up alter for some kind of final show down. The issue is that there are more interesting ways to do that, given the information about life, death, this history we’ve learned, and how the death magic works.
Hopefully Nona the Ninth makes things better.
